Journal articles on the topic 'Western Fair Association'

Background: Family planning is an important component of reproductive health. Through family planning, couples can plan the number and spacing of their children. The use of family planning method depends on the various factors such as knowledge and largely on the barriers faced by women. The objective of the study was to assess the knowledge and barriers towards use of family planning methods among women.Methods: This study was conducted at Village Dhawa, Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Data were collected from 380 married women selected by convenient sampling technique. Data collection tool included Self-structured knowledge questionnaire and barrier rating scale. Analysis was done by using descriptive and inferential statistics.Results: Most commonly used method of family planning was Sterilization. More than half of women (58.4%) had fair knowledge regarding family planning methods. Mean knowledge score was 15.48±3.14. Unawareness about the existing method was most reported barrier and Costs too much was least reported barrier. The knowledge level of women had significant association with religion and occupation (p level <0.05).Conclusions: Overall women had fair level of knowledge regarding family planning methods. Lack of awareness emerged as a key barrier in use of these methods by women. There is need to implement extensive awareness programs and empower women as active decision makers with respect to use of family planning methods.

Purpose – Improving the health of children under the age of five is one of the main objectives of primary healthcare services in most developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to identify the nutritional status of children under the age of five and its impact on cognitive function. Design/methodology/approach – The cross-sectional study was carried out in a semi-urban community in south-western Nigeria. The sample consisted of 220 school children under the age of five. Anthropometric measurements including weight, height and mid arm circumference were carried out to determine the nutritional status of the children. Cognitive function of the children was assessed using a developmental checklist developed by the American Academy of Pediatrics and their performance was graded as good, fair and poor. Findings – The overall prevalence of malnutrition in this study was low with stunting, underweight and wasting recording 8.2, 6.8 and 1.8 percent, respectively thereby making stunting the most common malnutrition indicator in this study. A large proportion of the children (88.6 percent) had good cognitive performance while 11.4 and 5.5 percent had fair and poor cognitive performance, respectively. Among the various malnutrition indicators measured in this study, stunting was found to have a statistically significant association with cognitive development (p=0.005).Stunted children have multiple functional disadvantages that persist throughout childhood and poor nutrition almost certainly plays a role. This paper calls for a need for the Nigerian Government to intervene by ensuring that policies are implemented that will ensure that health and nutritional needs of preschool children are guaranteed right from conception. Originality/value – In view of the importance of nutrition for cognition in children, this research has shown that the cognitive function of preschool children can be affected by stunting and it has contributed to global data on nutrition and cognition particularly in South-Western Nigeria.

Background: Child abuse is a kind of domestic violence that involves all forms of physical, emotional and sexual maltreatment and negligence of children under the age of 18 years which potentially or actually damages all aspects of their health. Child abuse is a global problem with serious lifelong consequences. In India the child abuse has not received enough attention. There have been few and irregular efforts to understand and address the problem. Aim was to assess the level of knowledge regarding prevention of child abuse among parents.Methods: Descriptive Survey design was used. The study population comprised of parents of children less than 18 years of age. A sample of 60 parents were selected by non-probability purposive sampling technique. A self-structured questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge regarding child abuse among parents. Informed consent was taken from each participant prior to data collection and descriptive and inferential statistics were used to analyse the data.Results: Majority of parents 60% had poor or fair level of knowledge, 39% had good knowledge whereas only 1.6% had excellent knowledge. There was a significant association between knowledge and age of mother at 0.02 level of significance.Conclusions: The finding of the study concluded that the knowledge regarding child abuse among parents was inadequate. Considering this aspects further awareness drives can be conducted to make the people alert about child abuse and its prevention.

We, the participants in the Joint Meeting of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME), the Index Medicus for the South-East Asian Region (IMSEAR), and the Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM) held in Tokyo from 2 to 4 August 2013: CONSIDERING That overwhelming data in science and medicine may differ in their reliability and that quality control is important for compiling scientific and health information; That equitable circulation of scientific and health information is facilitated by fair collaboration among policy makers, researchers, and industry sectors including pharmaceuticals and publishers; That APAME, IMSEAR, and WPRIM are important collaborative initiatives that can implement global guidelines for publication and dissemination of scientific and medical knowledge in an equitable and ethical manner; CONFIRM Our commitment to endorse that scientific and medical knowledge is imperishable and should not be assessed or evaluated by only economic or temporal considerations; Our commitment to improve quality and reliability of scientific and medical knowledge through the IMSEAR and WPRIM; Our commitment to publish reliable and high-quality information by education of researchers, implementation of fair review processes, and organization of networks through APAME; Our commitment to collaborate with publishers, academic or public libraries, and research bodies to achieve equitable and ethical publication and dissemination of scientific and medical knowledge; COMMIT Ourselves, to publishing reliable and high-quality information, thereby setting the ethical standard for our colleagues, editors, and librarians in the Region; Our publishers, to disseminating scientific and medical knowledge fairly and impartially through digital library services including, but not limited to, IMSEAR, WPRIM, and the Global Health Library; Our organization, APAME, to building further networks, convening conferences, and organizing events to educate and empower editors, peer reviewers, and authors to achieve internationally acceptable, but regionally realistic, scholarly standards. 4 August 2013, Tokyo This declaration was adopted at the 2013 Convention of the Asia Pacific Association of Medical Journal Editors (APAME) held in Tokyo from 2 to 4 August 2013. It is concurrently published by Journals linked to APAME and listed in the Index Medicus for the South East Asian Region (IMSEAR) and the Western Pacific Region Index Medicus (WPRIM). Copyright © APAME. www.wpro.who.int/apame apame@wpro.who.int

AbstractThe Australian Twin Registry (ATR) has, since the late 1970s, enrolled more than 30,000 pairs of all zygosity types and ages willing to consider participation in approved research studies. Its core functions are the recruitment to, and maintenance of, an up-to-date database containing contact details and baseline information, and the management of fair and equitable access so as to enhance medical and scientific research. The ATR has facilitated more than 430 studies producing 525 peer-reviewed publications using a variety of designs including classic biometrical twin and twin family studies, co-twin control studies, intervention studies, longitudinal studies, and studies of issues relevant specifically to twins. The ATR is supported for 2004 to 2009 by an Australian National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Enabling Grant, a new form of funding which recognizes the importance of long-term support for shared national resources. New initiatives include: integration with the Western Australian Twin Child Health (WATCH) cohort and the new Western Australian Twin Registry (WATR); foundation of a cohort of mothers and their twin children recruited from the time of diagnosis of the multiple gestation (match); a national Twins Festival run in collaboration with the Australian Multiple Birth Association (AMBA); promotion of the ATR at medical conferences; and fostering an active network of researchers from a range of disciplines and providing financial support for new researchers to attend international twin research workshops. Consistent with its mission statement, the long-term goal of the ATR is to make twin studies a standard component of medical and scientific research.

It is well known that 175,000 Chinese laborers worked for Allied troops in Europe during World War I. This phenomenon has been recorded in major WWI histories and has become the topic of monographs in Chinese and Western languages. Chinese laborers solved the Allied problem of a serious manpower shortage and made contributions to military fieldwork, construction, and factory work. Comparatively speaking, few scholars have paid attention to the Christian work among the Chinese laborers, which gave them considerable comfort and assistance and which laid the foundation for other service to Chinese laborers in France. Though some people have a general understanding that the Young Men's Christian Association (including the British YMCA and the International Committee of the YMCA in North America) was the most active and energetic group in offering assistance to the Chinese laborers, little has been written that explains the YMCA operations among the laborers, preventing a fair and thorough evaluation of the YMCA's service to the Chinese laborers. This paper, based on material from the American YMCA Archives, the Canadian Church Archives, and some Chinese writings on this topic, attempts to investigate the origin, operation, and development of this YMCA international project and to assess its significance in church history and in modern China.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to: examine the value relevance of financial instruments disclosure (FID) provided by Jordanian listed companies under International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS 7) as compared to that supplied under IAS 30/32; provide evidence about the value relevance of high vs low levels of FID; and investigate which components of FI-related information are more value relevant. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 70 Jordanian listed companies is used in this monograph. A disclosure index checklist was constructed to measure FI information provided by the sample companies. In addition, a valuation model is employed to test the association between FID and market value. Findings Although evidence is provided that FI information was value relevant over the two periods of investigation, the information supplied after the implementation of IFRS 7 was more strongly associated with market values. An analysis of the sub-components of FID reveals that the details about balance sheet, fair value and risk information matter when valuing equity. Overall, the results indicate that investors value FI-related information when making their equity pricing decisions. The result suggests that compliance with IFRS mandatory disclosure requirements does produce relevant financial statements. Research limitations/implications The results of the current study have a number of implications for policy makers. First, they provide a great deal of insight for the IASB about the relevance of its standards to countries outside the western context. In addition, the findings provide valuable insights for policy makers in Jordan who are concerned about the implications of mandatory disclosures. Originality/value The analysis of FID in developing countries in general, and in Jordan in particular, has been overlooked by the extant literature and therefore this study is the first of its kind to examine this research issue for a sample of Jordanian firms.

Objectives: High Tibial Osteotomy (HTO) is widely performed to treat early arthiritis in the varus knee. The aim of this prospective study is to evaluate different prognostic factors affecting the outcomes of HTO and, with special attention to the role of the site of deformity. Methods: 231 Opening Wedge HTO (OWHTO) were performed in 202 patients and included in the study. Inclusion criteria were: 1) age > 18 years, 2) no major associated procedures (i.e. ACL reconstruction, major cartilage procedure, 3) only OWHTO, 4) pre-operative complete clinical and radiological evaluation available. Patients were evaluated with (1) the Knee Society score (KSS), (2) the Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Osteoarthritis Index (WOMAC) score, (3) another self-evaluation scale, (4) long-leg radiographs, and (5) plain radiographs. On the x-ray different angles were evaluated, including Join Line Congruence Angle. Furthermore, the location of deformity was established. Three main outcomes were identified: Indication to Total Knee Arthroplasty (TKA), KSS poor or fair and WOMAC < 76 points), and different prognostic factors were identified (Fig. 1). All the variables were firstly tested in a single regression model to evaluate the association with each outcome. All the variables with p<0.1 were re-tested in a multiple regression model. Results: 32 patients were lost to follow-up and 31 patients did not meet the inclusion criteria, leaving 139 patients (156 OWHTOs) for the study. The average age was 52.9 ± 9.6 years, and the average follow-up was 97.7 ± 42.8 months. Post-operatively there was a significant improvement in both the KSS and WOMAC score compared to the pre-operative period (p<0.0001). The only variable related to TKA indication was a pre-operative JLCA ≥5° (OR=24.3, p=0.0483). Conversely, different variables were related to a worse KSS, including pre-operative BMI >30 Kg/m2 (OR=78.9, p=0.0028), pre-operative ROM <120° of flexion (OR=40.8, p=0.0421), pre-operative mLDFA ≥91° (OR=36,6,p=0.0401) and femoral pre-operative CORA ≥3° of varus (OR=39,9 p=0.0269). Furthermore, a pre-operative BMI >30 Kg/m2 (OR=29,5, p=0.0314) was associated to a worse WOMAC score. Conversely, patients with a pre-operative mMPTA ≤84° had lower risk to obtain a worse KSS oe WOMAC score (respectively OR= 0,2 p=0.0364 and OR=0,3 p=0.0071). The cumulative survivorship was calculated with the Kaplan-Meier method, and it resulted equal to 98.6% at 5 years and decreased to 85.5% at 10 years. Conclusion: OWHTO is a good treatment for early arthritis in the varus knee if the correct indications are applied. The outcomes can be considered good, with 85% of 10-year survivorship. It is mandatory to correctly address the location of the deformity, because the presence of a femoral varus deformity is related to worse outcomes. Similarly, presence of a pre-operative JLCA ≥5° is the only factor associated to TKA indication. [Table: see text]

Abstract This paper brings into focus the feminine qualities that heroines in Western fairy tales possess, as well as the roles they traditionally perform. The heroines are either rewarded or punished in accordance to how well they fit the feminine pattern, while the association of femininity with the female clearly indicates the social impact of gender ideology. Two variations on the Cinderella story will illustrate how feminist revisions of fairytales upset this rigid division.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the claim that Western accounting reforms, in particular the adoption of International Public Sector Accounting Standards (IPSASs) would enhance transparency and accountability and reduce corruption in patronage-based developing countries such as Nigeria. Design/methodology/approach The paper utilises the patron/clientelism framework to examine the dynamics of Western accounting reforms in the Nigerian patronage-based society, in which the institutions of governance and regulatory structures are arguably weak. The paper utilises archival data and interviews conducted with representatives of state bodies (elected politicians and officials) and professional accounting associations. Findings Results from two major reforms (the sale of government-owned residential properties in Lagos and the monetisation of fringe benefits for public officials) are presented. Despite the claim of the adoption of Western accounting standards, and in particular IPSAS 17, which requires full accrual accounting and the utilisation of fair value in property valuation, historical cost accounting appeared to have been mobilised to massively corrupt the process for the benefit of politicians, other serving and retired public officials and family members. Originality/value This study contributes to the current literature by providing evidence of the relationship between patronage, corruption and accounting in wealth redistribution in the patronage-based Nigerian socio-political and economic context.

To understand the role that ARF6 plays in regulating isoactin dynamics and cell motility, we transfected endothelial cells (EC) with HA-tagged ARF6: the wild-type form (WT), a constitutively-active form unable to hydrolyze GTP (Q67L), and two dominant-negative forms, which are either unable to release GDP (T27N) or fail to bind nucleotide (N122I). Motility was assessed by digital imaging microscopy before Western blot analysis, coimmunoprecipitation, or colocalization studies using ARF6, β-actin, or β-actin-binding protein-specific antibodies. EC expressing ARF6-Q67L spread and close in vitro wounds at twice the control rates. EC expressing dominant-negative ARF6 fail to develop a leading edge, are unable to ruffle their membranes (N122I), and possess arborized processes. Colocalization studies reveal that the Q67L and WT ARF6-HA are enriched at the leading edge with β-actin; but T27N and N122I ARF6-HA are localized on endosomes together with the β-actin capping protein, βcap73. Coimmunoprecipitation and Western blot analyses reveal the direct association of ARF6-HA with βcap73, defining a role for ARF6 in signaling cytoskeletal remodeling during motility. Knowledge of the role that ARF6 plays in orchestrating membrane and β-actin dynamics will help to reveal molecular mechanisms regulating actin-based motility during development and disease.

Using strategies from critical race studies and feminist studies of science, medicine, and the body, we examine the covert operation of race and region in a regulation restricting the natural levels of testosterone in women athletes. Sport organizations claim the rule promotes fair competition and benefits the health of women athletes. Intersectional and postcolonial analyses have shown that "gender challenges" of specific women athletes engage racialized judgments about sex atypicality that emerged in the context of Western colonialism and are at the heart of Western modernity. Here, we introduce the concept of "T talk" to refer to the web of direct claims and indirect associations that circulate around testosterone as a material substance and a multivalent cultural symbol. In the case we discuss, T talk naturalizes the idea of sport as a masculine domain while deflecting attention from the racial politics of intrasex competition. Using regulation documents, scientific publications, media coverage, in-depth interviews, and sport officials’ public presentations, we show how this supposedly neutral and scientific regulation targets women of color from the Global South. Contrary to claims that the rule is beneficent, both racialization and medically-authorized harms are inherent to the regulation.

In his presidential address at the 1977 annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, Marius Jansen pointed out that the relationship between monarchy and modernization in Japan is a significant subject of research for Western scholars specializing in Japanese studies. Specifically, Jansen emphasized the need to investigate the popular perceptions of the monarch usually overlooked by Japanese historians. He noted that a study of Japanese mentalité must cover a vast area, including “imagery, iconography, and ritual.” Until we “get at” this level of the social and cultural history of modern Japan, Jansen feared, we will fail to gain “a better understanding of modernization, of Japan, in world history” (1977:612–22).

The Early Permian (290 Ma) Panjal Traps are the largest contiguous outcropping of volcanic rocks associated with the Himalayan Magmatic Province (HMP). The eruptions of HMP-related lava were contemporaneous with the initial break-up of Pangea. The Panjal Traps are primarily basalt but volumetrically minor intermediate and felsic volcanic rocks also occur. The basaltic rocks range in composition from continental tholeiite to ocean-floor basalt and nearly all have experienced, to varying extent, crustal contamination. Uncontaminated basaltic rocks have Sr–Nd isotopes similar to a chondritic source (ISr = 0.7043 to 0.7073; eNd(t) = 0 ± 1), whereas the remaining basaltic rocks have a wide range of Nd (eNd(t) = –6.1 to +4.3) and Sr (ISr = 0.7051 to 0.7185) isotopic values. The calculated primary melt compositions of basalt are picritic and their mantle potential temperatures (TP ≤ 1450°C) are similar to ambient mantle rather than anomalously hot mantle. The silicic volcanic rocks were likely derived by partial melting of the crust whereas the andesitic rocks were derived by mixing between crustal and mantle melts. The Traps erupted within a continental rift setting that developed into a shallow sea. Sustained rifting created a nascent ocean basin that led to sea-floor spreading and the rifting of microcontinents from Gondwana to form the ribbon-like continent Cimmeria and the Neotethys Ocean.RÉSUMÉLes Panjal Traps du début Permien (290 Ma) constituent le plus grand affleurement contigu de roches volcaniques associées à la province magmatique de himalayienne (HMP). Les éruptions de lave de type HMP étaient contemporaines de la rupture initiale de la Pangée. Les Panjal Traps sont essentiellement des basaltes, mais on y trouve aussi des roches volcaniques intermédiaires et felsiques en quantités mineures. La composition de ces roches basaltiques varie de tholéiite continentale à basalte de plancher océanique, et presque toutes ont subi, à des degrés divers, une contamination de matériaux crustaux. Les roches basaltiques non contaminées ont des contenus isotopiques Sr–Nd similaires à une source chondritique (Isr = 0,7043 à 0,7073; eNd (t) = 0 ± 1), alors que les roches basaltiques autres montrent une large gamme de valeurs isotopiques en Nd (eNd (t) = –6,1 à +4,3) et Sr (Isr = de 0,7051 à 0,7185). Les compositions de fusion primaire calculées des basaltes sont picritiques et leurs températures potentielles mantelliques (TP de ≤ 1450°C) sont similaires à la température ambiante du manteau plutôt que celle d’un manteau anormalement chaud. Les roches volcaniques siliciques dérivent probablement de la fusion partielle de la croûte alors que les roches andésitiques proviennent du mélange entre des matériaux de fusion crustaux et mantelliques. Les Traps ont fait irruption dans un contexte de rift continental qui s’est développé dans une mer peu profonde. Un rifting soutenu a créé un début de bassin océanique lequel conduit à une expansion du fond océanique et au rifting de microcontinents tirés du Gondwana pour former le continent rubané de Cimméria et l'océan Néotéthys.

Abstract Context By linking species of conservation concern to their abiotic and biotic requirements, habitat suitability models (HSM) can assist targeted conservation measures. Yet, conservation measures may fail if HSM are unable to predict crucial resources. HSM are typically developed using remotely sensed land-cover classification data but not information on resources per se. Objectives While a certain land-cover class may correlate with crucial resources in the area of calibration, political boundaries can abruptly alter these associations. We investigate this potential discrepancy in a well-known study system highly relevant for farmland bird conservation. Methods We compared land cover, land-use intensity and resource availability between plots of highest habitat suitability for little owls (Athene noctua) among two neighbouring, but politically separated areas (i.e. south-western Germany vs. northern Switzerland). Results Land cover and land-use richness did not differ between German and Swiss plots. Yet there were marked differences in terms of land-use intensity and the availability of resources. Land-use intensity was significantly higher and resource availability lower in Swiss compared to German plots. Conclusions While accounting well for remotely sensed data such as land cover, HSM may fail to predict land-use intensity and resources across borders. The relationship between geodata used as proxies and ecologically relevant resources may differ according to history, policies and socio-cultural context, constraining the viability of HSM across political borders. This study emphasises the need for fine-scale resource assessments complementing landscape-scale suitability models. Conservation measures need to consider the availability of crucial resources and their socio-economic moderators to be effective.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between perceived organizational support (POS), organizational commitment and job satisfaction among special education teachers in Pakistan. The data were collected from 85 special education teachers from different special education centers in Punjab, Pakistan. POS was measured using a survey of POS developed by Eisenberger et al. (1986). Affective continuance and normative commitment are measured by affective continuance and normative commitment scales developed by Meyer and Allen’s (1984) and Allen and Meyer (1990), respectively. Results of the current study show that POS and job satisfaction are positively correlated with affective and normative commitment. POS and job satisfaction are not associated with continuance organizational commitment. This suggests that a teacher’s commitment can be improved by increasing organizational support, underprivileged working environment and job satisfaction. Limitations and implication of the study are discussed. Design/methodology/approach In the current study, cross-sectional research design and non-probability purposive sampling technique were used. A sample of 85 special education teachers was collected from different special education institutes of Punjab and federal, Pakistan. Inclusion criteria were teacher with specialization in all disabilities (mentally challenged, deaf, blind, physical handicapped and slow learners), informed consent and age range 20‒55 years, at least 6-month teaching experience in special education. Exclusion criteria were teaching experience less than 6 months and age less than 20 or more than 55 years. The demographic characteristics of teachers are presented in Table II. Findings Findings of the present study suggest a positive association between POS, affective commitment, normative commitment and job satisfaction, whereas there is no association between POS and continuance commitment as well as between job satisfaction and continuance commitment among special education teachers in Pakistan. Organization should consider the exclusive support of the special education teachers. Research limitations/implications The current study also has some limitation. The sample size is very small. In the current study, data are collected from 85 special education teachers from federal and few cities of Punjab, Pakistan. Hence, data are not true representative. Data for current study are collected through self-reported scales and only collected from academic staff. Practical implications In the current study, special education teachers have identified factors that promote organizational support, commitment and job satisfaction, such as reasonable workloads, sound working environment, unbiased and fair working conditions, and administrative support. It has been found that decreased level of POS, commitment and job satisfaction damage the organization, special educators and special students. Therefore, special education department should develop and implement policies that strengthen these dimensions. A broad recommendation can be made on the basis of these findings: affective and normative commitment increases when individuals have satisfying experience with organization. Thus, this may be improved by providing special educators with the opportunity to work in a better work environment, with proper work load, as it would increase emotional and normative attachment of the individuals with their institutes. The current study would be helpful for policy makers in the field of education and administration in order to work on these dimensions to increase the teacher’s job satisfaction and organizational commitment. It would also create awareness among the general public about the potential problems of special education teachers in Pakistan affecting the quality of life of children with special needs. Results suggest that by providing organizational support, appropriate work load and unbiased attitude, a teacher’s commitment can be improved. Social implications The current research helps academics and administration to improve social functioning of special education teachers by improving their job satisfaction and organizational support. Originality/value The prevalence rate of children with disabilities is increasing rapidly in Pakistan. Since stigma is associated with individuals with disabilities, parents hide disabilities of their children so that other relatives may not face any problems, such as being doubted of carrying defective genes. Families have to cope with financial crises due to lack of institutional support, extra expense to deal with disabled person and loss of work. In such circumstances, special education institutions are only hopes for such people to assist them in dealing with their disabled children. However, the strength of teachers in these institutions is not enough to fulfill needs of such children. A number of researches have examined the role of organizational support, job satisfaction and organizational commitment of teachers in western countries (Makanjee et al., 2006; Alijanpou et al., 2013; Batool and Ullah, 2013). However, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no study has yet investigated this serious issue in Pakistan. This study provides valuable information on organizational support, commitment and job satisfaction among special educators, and recommendation on how organizational commitment can be improved.

AbstractNew Sr-Nd isotope data were obtained from Late Pleistocene carbonatite-kamafugite associations from the Umbria-Latium Ultra-Alkaline District of Italy (ULUD) with the aim of constraining their origin and possible mantle source(s). This is relevant to the origin and evolution of ultrapotassic (K/Na ≫2) and associated rocks generally, notably the occurrences from Ugandan kamafugites,Western Australian lamproites and South African orangeites. The selected ULUD samples yielded 87Sr/86Sr and 143Nd/144Nd ranging from 0.7100 to 0.7112 and from 0.5119 to 0.5121 respectively, similar to cratonic potassic volcanic rocks with higher Rb/Sr and lower Sm/Nd ratios than Bulk Earth. Silicate and carbonate fractions separated from melilitite are in isotopic equilibrium, supporting the view that they are cogenetic. The ULUD carbonatites yielded the highest radiogenic Sr so far reported for carbonatites. In contrast, sedimentary limestones from ULUD basement formations are lower in radiogenic Sr, i.e. 87Sr/86Sr = 0.70745–0.70735. The variation trend of ULUD isotopic compositions is similar to that reported for Ugandan kamafugites and Western Australian lamproites and overlaps the values for South African orangeites in the εSr-εNd diagram. A poor correlation between Sr/Nd and 87Sr/86Sr ratios in ULUD rocks is inconsistent with a mantle source generated by subduction-driven processes, while the negligible Sr and LREE in sedimentary limestones from the ULUD region fail to account for a hypothetical limestone assimilation process. The Nd model ages of 1.5–1.9 Ga have been inferred for a possible metasomatic event, allowing further radiogenic evolution of the source, a process which may have occurred in isolation until eruption time. While the origin of this component remains speculative, the Sr-Nd isotope trend is consistent with a simple mixing process involving an OIB-type mantle and a component with low εNd and high εSr.

Abstract Background Socioeconomic (SE) inequalities have been observed in a number of adverse outcomes of pregnancy and many of the risk factors for such outcomes are associated with a low SE level. However, SE inequalities persist even after adjustment for these risk factors. Less well-off women are more vulnerable, but may also get less adequate health services. The objective of the present study was to assess possible associations between SE conditions in terms of maternal education as well as ethnic background and obstetric care. Methods A population-based national cohort study from the Medical Birth Registry of Norway. The study population comprised 2 305 780 births from the observation period 1967–2009. Multilevel analysis was used because of the hierarchical structure of the data. Outcome variables included induction of labour, epidural analgesia, caesarean section, neonatal intensive care and perinatal death. Results While medical interventions in the 1970s were employed less frequently in women of short education and non-western immigrants, this difference was eliminated or even reversed towards the end of the observation period. However, an excess perinatal mortality in both the short-educated [adjusted relative risk (aRR) = 2.49] and the non-western immigrant groups (aRR = 1.75) remained and may indicate increasing health problems in these groups. Conclusion Even though our study suggests a fair and favourable development during the last decades in the distribution across SE groups of obstetric health services, the results suggest that the needs for obstetric care have increased in vulnerable groups, requiring a closer follow-up.

Abstract The 2002 Indian summer monsoon season is unique because of its exceptional weakness, its association with a relatively weak El Niño, and its precedence by over a decade in which ENSO events fail to be associated with significant monsoon anomalies. In this study, atmospheric hydrology during the 2002 summer monsoon and its relationship to monsoon seasons accompanying El Niño events since 1948 are assessed using reanalysis and satellite fields. Strong hydrologic deficits are identified for July and September 2002. During July, the impact of the disturbed Hadley and Walker circulations in the African and Indian Ocean region on vertically integrated moisture transport (VIMT) in the Arabian Sea and India is found to be key to the Indian drought. Interhemispheric coherence in satellite-derived surface wind anomalies is also identified. During September, VIMT and surface wind anomalies, both to the east and west of India, contribute to anomalous moisture divergence in India. Bay of Bengal SST and Indian CAPE anomalies are found to act in response to the season’s major break episodes, contrary to other studies that suggest their role as instigators of break periods. The 2002 season is also found to exhibit characteristics that are common to other recent weak monsoons accompanying El Niño, such as strong westerly VIMT anomalies in the western Pacific Ocean and easterly VIMT anomalies in the Arabian Sea. Hydrologic anomalies that distinguish many recent normal monsoon seasons coinciding with El Niño from the El Niño distribution overall are not evident in 2002. In many respects, the 2002 season thus represents a reemergence of the hydrologic anomalies that have accompanied a strong monsoon–ENSO teleconnection over the past 50 yr and may present a challenge for perspectives that suggest a lasting decoupling of the monsoon–ENSO systems.

Delivering satisfactory educational quality is paramount to achieving institutional objectives such as improve revenue, enrolment growth, contributes significantly to the goal of sustainable competitive advantage for most for-profit universities. In Nigeria, many private universities are recording low enrolment into their BSc Marketing degree programmes. However, students’ disposition to marketing as a course of study has not been well studied. Most marketing education studies have focused mainly on the teaching methodologies without giving due consideration quality of educational experience that shape enrolment into this vital field of study. This study examined the effect Service Quality (SQ) and Students’ Satisfaction (SS) into BSc. Marketing degree programmes in selected Nigerian private universities in South Western Nigeria. Cross-sectional survey research design was adopted in this study. The population consisted of 201 BSc undergraduate students from six selected private universities from South Western geo-political zone of Nigeria. Total enumeration was employed and all the undergraduate marketing students of the six selected private universities were respondents for this work. A structured questionnaire was adapted and validated. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability coefficient for the constructs were indicated thus; SQ =0.833 and SS=0.88807. The response rate of 97.5 % was achieved for this study. Data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Findings revealed that that service quality had significant effect on student satisfaction for B.Sc. Marketing degreeprogrammes in selected private universities in South Western Nigeria (R2= 0.084, β = 0.252, t = 2.757, p<0.05). The study recommended that universities and marketing professional associations should commit significant resources to organizing career fairs, workshops, essay competitions and expert series to create public awareness on the importance of marketing as a career and the foundational role the profession plays in profit and non-profit organizations.

We have cloned and characterized Xlrbpa, a double-stranded RNA-binding protein from Xenopus laevis. Xlrbpa is a protein of 33 kD and contains three tandemly arranged, double-stranded RNA-binding domains (dsRBDs) that bind exclusively to double-stranded RNA in vitro, but fail to bind either single-stranded RNA or DNA. Sequence data and the overall organization of the protein suggest that Xlrbpa is the Xenopus homologue of human TAR-RNA binding protein (TRBP), a protein isolated by its ability to bind to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) TAR-RNA. In transfection assays, TRBP has also been shown to inhibit the interferon-induced protein kinase PKR possibly by direct physical interaction. To determine the function of Xlrbpa and its human homologue we studied the expression and intracellular distribution of the two proteins. Xlrbpa is ubiquitously expressed with marked quantitative differences amongst all tissues. Xlrbpa and human TRBP can be detected in the cytoplasm and nucleus by immunofluorescence staining and Western blotting. Sedimentation gradient analyses and immunoprecipitation experiments suggest an association of cytoplasmic Xlrbpa with ribosomes. In contrast, a control construct containing two dsRBDs fails to associate with ribosomes in microinjected Xenopus oocytes. Nuclear staining of Xenopus lampbrush chromosome preparations showed the association of the protein with nucleoli, again indicating an association of the protein with ribosomal RNAs. Additionally, Xlrbpa could be located on lampbrush chromosomes and in snurposomes. Immunoprecipitations of nuclear extracts demonstrated the presence of the protein in heterogeneous nuclear (hn) RNP particles, but not in small nuclear RNPs, explaining the chromosomal localization of the protein. It thus appears that Xlrbpa is a general double-stranded RNA-binding protein which is associated with the majority of cellular RNAs, ribosomal RNAs, and hnRNAs either alone or as part of an hnRNP complex.

Abstract Small-bodied vertebrates sometimes evolve gigantism on islands, but there is a lack of consistent association with ecological factors or island characteristics. One possible reason is that, even if the ecological conditions are right, body size might fail to diverge on islands that were isolated recently or if there is gene flow between islands and the mainland. We studied body size, ventral colour polymorphism and genetic structure across nine islands and adjacent mainland populations of common wall lizards (Podarcis muralis) off the western coast of France. Population genetic data suggested that island populations might have maintained gene flow after their geographical isolation from the mainland. Island lizards were larger and heavier than mainland lizards on average, but the extent of gigantism varied substantially between islands. Island size and distance from the mainland were poor predictors of body size, but lizards from populations that were highly genetically differentiated from the mainland were larger than lizards from less differentiated populations. Colour morphs that were rare on the mainland tended to be more common on islands. We propose that genetic isolation or bottlenecks promote body size evolution in island lizards, which makes it challenging to identify ecological causes of island gigantism without complementary genetic information.

Neighborhood-level socioeconomic variables, such as the proportion of minority and low-income residents, have been associated with a greater density of tobacco retail outlets (TROs), though less is known about the degree to which these neighborhood indicators are related to vape shop outlet (VSO) density. Many studies of TROs and neighborhood characteristics include only a small set of variables and also fail to take into account the correlation among these variables. Using a carefully curated database of all TROs and VSOs in Virginia (2016–2018), we developed a Bayesian model to estimate a neighborhood disadvantage index and examine its association with rates of outlets across census tracts while also accounting for correlations among variables. Models included 12 census tract variables from the American Community Survey. Results showed that increasing neighborhood disadvantage was associated with a 63% and 64% increase in TRO and VSO risk, respectively. Important variables associated with TRO rates included % renter occupied housing, inverse median gross rent, inverse median monthly housing costs, inverse median monthly housing costs, and % vacant housing units. Important variables associated with VSO rates were % renter occupied housing and % Hispanic population. There were several spatial clusters of significantly elevated risk for TROs and VSOs in western and eastern Virginia.

Purpose Conflicts are inevitable in organizations and are a significant challenge for frontline managers (FLMs). This study aims to investigate the relationship between the leadership styles of FLMs and relationship conflicts (RLCs), with the indirect intervention of emotion regulation (ER) and five conflict-handling styles (CHSs). Design/methodology/approach Research data were obtained from 243 FLMs in the Pakistan textile industry. SPSS 23 and PROCESS macros software were used to test and verify hypotheses regarding leadership styles, ER, CHSs and RLC. The authors conducted 5,000 bootstrap replications to verify mediation. Findings Leadership styles are significantly associated with RLC. A high degree of ER can negatively moderate RLCs through transformational leadership (TFL) and transactional leadership (TCL) styles and positively moderate RLCs through a laissez-faire leadership (LZF) style. Among CHSs, a compromise style mediates the relationship between RLC and the TFL and LZF styles, and a domination style mediates the relationship between RLC and the TCL style. Practical implications FLMs should be trained to overcome workplace interpersonal conflicts. Appropriate cognizance of a conflict before it occurs is a requisite skill. FLMs must be able to use all five given CHSs. Originality/value This study identifies the association of leadership styles with CHSs and ER to manage RLC in a non-Western context. The study enhances understanding of the use of the ER factor with the different CHSs of FLMs.

Abstract Germline mutations in the X-linked transcription factor, GATA-1, cause several hematopoietic disorders resulting in anemia and/or macrothrombocytopenia. Features of the platelet ultrastructural pathology, including hypo- and agranular megathrombocytes (Mtc) in all mutations, tubular membrane sheets often in parallel association in megakaryocytes and Mtc of patients with the V205M and G208S variations, platelets sequestered in Mtc and platelets in platelets in Mtc (as many as five in one Mtc) in the V205M, G208S and R216Q disorders, together with platelets attached to platelets attached to platelets forming large Mtc in the V205M and G208S mutations have helped to explain how Mtc are formed and why they fail to separate from proplatelets of megakaryocytes and enter the circulation as single cells. However, the findings do not explain why patients with GATA-1 mutations often have serious bleeding problems. Major receptors for hemostasis and thrombosis are present on GATA-1 Mtc, although, in some cases, slightly reduced in frequency. Yet, while the cells bind to and spread fully on glass and plastic, they adhere poorly to vWF or collagen coated glass slides under flow conditions, aggregate less well than normal platelets when stirred with collagen or ristocetin in an aggregometer and fail to retract clots. The findings suggest that internal activation mechanisms for the surface receptors are defective. The present study has solubilized GATA-1 Mtc from two males with the G208S mutation and normal platelets in sodium dodecyl sulfate/ EDTA in the presence of protease inhibitors and analyzed their cytoskeletal proteins on reduced, one dimensional polyacrylamide gels using a Mini-Slab Gel Apparatus. Gels were electrophoresed by the method of Laemmli. Proteins were stained with colloidal Coomassie G250 blue. GATA-1 Mtc cytoskeletal proteins were the same as those from the normal subjects, except for the absence of Talin. Western blot analysis to prove the missing protein is Talin was carried out. Normal platelet and GATA-1 Mtc cytoskeletal proteins were transferred to nitrocellulose sheets. Identification and localization of the missing protein was accomplished using a mouse monoclonal antibody against human Talin and a secondary anti-mouse IgG peroxidase conjugate. The Western blot analysis confirmed that the missing Mtc protein is Talin. Recent studies have shown that binding of the 235–245 kD actin-binding protein Talin to the β subunit cytoplasmic tails of integrins is the final step of integrin activation. The absence of Talin in GATA-1 Mtc may result in failure of full integrin activation accounting for functional failure in hemostasis.

In the 21st century, sport is not just a fun, social cohesive force but also a business; it has become an independent industry by now and several countries possess developed sport markets. According to estimates, sport accounts for 4% of the EU’s GDP. The actuality of our research is given by the fact that the economic aspect of sports develops continuously which is also due to that more and more amounts already stream into sports in our days. In Hungary, sport is mainly state aided and has mostly financing problems while the sport businesses existing in the more developed Western Europe are principally sponsored by the private sector. The government considers sport as a strategic branch (HERCZEG et al, 2015) and manages as such because they see the international breakthrough potencies in sport as well. Sport companies must also adapt the business-based thinking, which requires the strategic planning and operation (BECSKY, 2011). The research covers the subject of economic approach of the players’ rights. The task of accounting is to give a true and fair image about the property, income and financial situation of an undertaking. Information provided by accounting is essential for both the management decisionmaking and the market operators. In Hungary, the sports undertakings, as each managing entity, have to prepare their statements according to the Act C of 2000 on Accounting (AoA.) (NAGY – BÁCSNÉ BÁBA, 2014). The purpose of this research is to examine how a domestic sports undertaking demonstrates the value of available players in the books and how the incomes and expenditures incurred with the players are accounted for, based on the regulations of the Hungarian, international associations and the Union of European Football Associations (hereinafter: UEFA). In order that the leaders of the businesses can make quick and appropriate economic decisions, it is essential in this intensively changing world that an enterprise should have a well-functioning accounting system based on up-to-date information. International Financial Reporting Standards (hereinafter: IFRS) are intended to provide the comparability across borders. Firstly, we deal with the accounting reporting system, both the Hungarian, international financial reporting standards and, relating to UEFA, the investigation of the intangible assets to a great extent during analysing the balance sheets. Then, we examine the income statements from the viewpoint player transfers. To what extent the rules of a statement laid down by UEFA differ from the ones of a statement prepared according to AoA? What is the difference in domestic and international relations? In this study, we search after the answers for questions mentioned before.

e14019 Background: Oxaliplatin is an integral drug in the management of patients with colorectal cancer (CRC); however, half the patients fail to benefit from it. We know that in vitro, the excision repair cross-complementing group-1 (ERCC1) gene is inducible and contributes to cellular resistance to oxaliplatin. Using peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) as a surrogate tissue, we sought to confirm in vivo, the inducibility of ERCC gene expression and its relationship to clinical outcomes. Methods: Patients with CRC who received oxaliplatin consented to blood (PBMC) sampling at 0, 2, 48 hours, and 14 days during any cycle of chemotherapy. Clinical benefit from oxaliplatin was determined using the parameters of response rate and progression free and overall survival (PFS and OS). ERCC1 gene expression was quantified by qPCR (quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction) and WB (western blotting). Results: A total of 52 patients have been enrolled of which 29 patients have sampling at all 4 time points. ERCC1 gene expression was induced in 48.5% and 66.7% by mRNA and WB, respectively. Down regulation was observed in 30.3% and 8.3% by mRNA and WB, respectively. No change was noted in rest of the patients. The median PFS in patients with ERCC1 induction by qPCR was 7.25 months and was numerically shorter than the 13 months noted in patients with stable or reduced ERCC. This may suggest that in patients with ERCC induction, there is compromised PFS, but our data is limited by the small sample size. The difference in induction noted between qPCR and WB remains unclear. We did not find any significant difference in PFS when taking baseline expression of ERCC into consideration. Conclusions: This study confirms the inducibility of ERCC gene expression in vivo, in a sub-population of patients with CRC when they are treated with oxaliplatin. This gene induction is a potential marker of resistance to chemotherapy. We failed to find an association between clinical benefit and baseline ERCC expression. The factors that influence the inducibility of this gene remain unknown requiring further studies.

Research objectives: To identify the main reasons for the formation of the cult of Janibek Khan of the Golden Horde in the oral historical memory of the nomadic steppe tribes which was embodied in the narrative tradition of Kazakhs from the fifteenth to eighteenth century. Research materials: The texts of the Kazakh folklore sources from the last quarter of the eighteenth to the beginning of twentieth century, published in different genres (tales, epics, legends, fairy tales) and dedicated to Janibek Khan or characters of the oral narratives closely related to him. Results and novelty of the research: The historiography of the Golden Horde and the medieval history of Kazakhstan considers it conventional wisdom that Uzbek Khan (r. 1313–1342) played the decisive role in the Islamization of the tribal population of the Ulus of Jochi during the fourteenth century. However, none of the Kazakh folklore sources recorded from the last quarter of eighteenth to beginning of twentieth century mentions his name. Rather, this role is given to the son and successor of Uzbek, Janibek Khan, who is the most popular character of oral narratives of Kazakhs dedicated to the Eurasian Middle Ages. This fact leads to the conclusion that the innovative activities of Uzbek in the field of religion covered mainly the western part of the Ulus of Jochi but had a limited impact on the steppe nomads of the Eastern Dasht-i Kipchak. The main role in the spread of Islam and Islamic culture to the east of the Ural River valley, in the territory of the ethnic nomadic ancestors of the Kazakh tribes, was played by Janibek Khan, which was reflected in the popular historical consciousness of Kazakhs. This article demonstrates the influence of Sufism’s cult of the “saints” borrowed by Muslim communities of the steppe in the process of sacralization of the historical Janibek Khan in the Kazakh narrative tradition and highlights the most characteristic features of his mythologized image. The scholarly novelty consists in the statement of the abovementioned theme of research and the structural analysis of the revealed folklore texts, which allows one to solve the long-standing problem of the association of the folk literature Janibek Khan of the Golden Horde and the historical Kazakh Khan of the same name who ruled in the eastern part of the former Ulus of Jochi in the later period.

Both the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) support regional and national integration, the protection of human rights and civil society involvement, and non-interference in member states' internal affairs. Sometimes these goals at the regional level become mutually exclusive. Human rights groups, international organizations, and Western states have criticized human rights abuses and democracy and governance shortcomings in several ASEAN states (e.g., Vietnam and Myanmar) and SADC countries (e.g., Swaziland, Madagascar, and Zimbabwe). This article addresses ASEAN and SADC's historical context and continued development related to these issues. It also evaluates the regional organizations' effectiveness in balancing o en mutually exclusive goals and concludes that existing regional organizational strength and cohesion impact the approaches used to manage conflict and external criticism and build greater social cohesion regionally and within states. SADC utilizes a “regional compliance model“ based on political criteria whereas ASEAN utilizes a “constructive engagement“ or “economic integration first“ model. SADC places greater emphasis on placing good governance, especially as it relates to human rights, at the forefront of regionalism. ASEAN sublimates human rights to regional integration through constructive engagement and greater emphases on economic relations. Two distinct models of regional integration exist.Spanish La Comunidad de Desarrollo de África Austral (SADC por sus siglas en inglés), y la Asociación de Naciones del Sudeste Asiático (ASEAN en inglés), apoyan la integración regional/continental y nacional, la protección de los derechos humanos, la participación de la sociedad civil, y la no injerencia en los asuntos internos de los estados miembros. A veces, estas metas son mutuamente excluyentes a nivel regional. Grupos de derechos humanos, organizaciones internacionales y estados occidentales han criticado las violaciones de los derechos humanos y las deficiencias en democracia y gobernabilidad en varios Estados de la ASEAN (por ejemplo, Vietnam y Myanmar) y en algunos países de la SADC (por ejemplo, Suazilandia, Madagascar y Zimbabue). En este artículo se aborda el contexto histórico de la SADC y la ASEAN y su continuo desarrollo relacionado con los temas mencionados. También se evalúa la eficacia de las organizaciones regionales, haciendo el balance entre los objetivos a menudo mutuamente excluyentes, y concluye que la existente fuerza regional de organización y cohesión impacta los enfoques utilizados para manejar el conflicto y la crítica externa, y promueve la construcción de una mayor cohesión social regionalmente y dentro de los estados. La SADC utiliza un “modelo de cumplimiento regional“ basado en criterios políticos, mientras que la ASEAN utiliza un modelo de “compromiso constructivo“ o “integración económica primero“. La SADC pone mayor énfasis en afianzar la buena gobernanza, especialmente en lo relacionado con los derechos humanos, a la vanguardia del regionalismo. La ASEAN vincula los derechos humanos a la integración regional a través de un compromiso constructivo y pone un mayor énfasis en las relaciones económicas. Dos existentes modelos diferentes de integración regional. French La Communauté de développement d'Afrique australe (SADC en anglais), aussi bien que L'Association des nations de l'Asie du SudEst (ANASE) soutiennent respectivement les principes relatifs à l'intégration régionale et nationale, à la protection des droits de l'homme, à la participation de la société civile dans l'agenda publique, ainsi qu'à la non-ingérence dans les affaires internes des Etats. Toutefois, il arrive que ces objectifs deviennent mutuellement exclusifs au niveau régional. Les organisations de défense des droits de l'homme et les gouvernements occidentaux n'ont jamais cessé de critiquer les violations des droits de l'homme, ainsi que les lacunes en matière de démocratie et de gouvernance qui prévalent dans les pays membre de l'ANASE (ex : le Viet Nam, Myanmar) et ceux de la SADC (ex : le Swaziland, Madagascar et le Zimbabwe). Cet article aborde le contexte historique dans lequel l'ANASE et la SADC ont vu le jour ainsi que la nature des enjeux qui l'ont suivi. Il évalue également d'un point de vue comparé, l'efficacité de ces organisations régionales sur la base des objectifs qu'ils se sont fixés, tout en penchant pour la conclusion selon laquelle la présence d'une force régionale influente impacte nécessairement dans la gestion des conflits, et combien la critique externe participe à la construction d'une plus grande cohésion sociale et régionale au sein des États. La SADC s'appuie un “modèle de conformité régionale» fondé sur des critères politiques, tandis que l'ANASE fait appel à un “engagement constructif“ ayant pour modèle “l'intégration économique“. La SADC accorde davantage plus d'importance à la mise en œuvre d'une bonne gouvernance, particulièrement en ce qui concerne les droits de l'homme et l'évolution vers un régionalisme plus avancé. L'ANASE sublime les droits de l'homme à l'intégration régionale par le biais d'un engagement constructif et de grandes insistances dans les relations économiques. Ce qui fait d'eux deux modèles d'intégration régionale distincts.

Abstract Erythroid Kruppel-Like Factor (EKLF; KLF1) is the founding member of the Kruppel family of transcription factors, with 3 C2H2 zinc-fingers that bind a 9-base consensus sequence (NCNCNCCCN). The functions of EKLF, first identified as an activator of the beta-globin locus, include gene activation and chromatin remodeling. Our knowledge of genes regulated by EKLF is limited, as EKLF-deficient mice die by embryonic day 15 (E15), due to a severe anemia. Analysis of E13.5 wild type and EKLF-deficient fetal liver (FL) erythroid cells revealed that EKLF-deficient cells fail to complete terminal erythroid maturation (Pilon et al. submitted). Coupling chromatin immunoprecipitation and ultra high-throughput massively parallel sequencing (ChIP-seq) is increasingly being used for mapping protein-DNA interactions in vivo on a genome-wide scale. ChIP-seq allows a simultaneous analysis of transcription factor binding in every region of the genome, defining an “interactome”. To elucidate direct EKLF-dependent effects on erythropoiesis, we have combined ChIP-seq with expression array (“transcriptome”) analyses. We feel that integration of ChIP-seq and microarray data can provide us detailed knowledge of the role of EKLF in erythropoiesis. Chromatin was isolated from E13.5 FL cells of mice whose endogenous EKLF gene was replaced with a fully functional HA-tagged EKLF gene. ChIP was performed using a highly specific high affinity anti-HA antibody. A library of EKLF-bound FL chromatin enriched by anti-HA IP was created and subjected to fluorescent in situ sequencing on a Solexa 1G platform, providing 36-base signatures that were mapped to unique sites in the mouse genome, defining the EKLF “interactome.” The frequency with which a given signature appears provides a measurable peak of enrichment. We performed three biological/technical replicates and analyzed each data set individually as well as the combined data. To validate ChIP-seq results, we examined the locus of a known EKLF target gene, a-hemoglobin stabilizing protein (AHSP). Peaks corresponded to previously identified DNase hypersensitive sites, regions of histone hyperacetylation, and sites of promoter-occupancy determined by ChIP-PCR. A genome wide analysis, focusing on the regions with the highest EKLF occupancy revealed a set of 531 locations where high levels EKLF binding occurs. Of these sites, 119 (22%) are located 10 kb or more from the nearest gene and are classified as intergenic EKLF binding sites. Another 78 sites (14.6%) are within 10 kb of an annotated RefSeq gene. A plurality of the binding sites, 222 (42%), are within RefSeq coordinates and are classified as intragenic EKLF binding sites. Microarray profiling of mRNA from sorted, matched populations of dE13.5 WT and EKLF-deficient FL erythroid progenitor cells showed dysregulation of &gt;3000 genes (p&lt;0.05). Ingenuity Pathways Analysis (IPA) of the &gt;3000 dysregulated mRNAs indicated significant alteration of a cell cycle-control network, centered about the transcription factor, E2f2. We confirmed significantly decreased E2f2 mRNA and protein levels by real-time PCR and Western blot, respectively; demonstrated that EKLF-deficient FL cells accumulate in G0/G1 by cell cycle analysis; and verified EKLF-binding to motifs within the E2f2 promoter by ChIP-PCR and analysis of the ChIP Seq data. We hypothesized that only a subset of the 3000 dysregulated genes would be direct EKLF targets. We limited the ChIP-seq library to display the top 5% most frequently represented fragments across the genome, and applied this criterion to the network of dysregulated mRNAs in the IPA cell cycle network. ChIP-seq identified peaks of EKLF association with 60% of the loci in this pathway. However, consistent with the role of EKLF as a transcriptional activator, 95% of the occupied genomic loci corresponded to mRNAs whose expression in EKLF-deficient FL cells was significantly decreased (p&lt;0.05). The majority (59%) of these EKLF-bound sites were located at intragenic sites (i.e., introns), while a minority (15% and 26%) were found adjacent to the genes or in intergenic regions. We have shown that both the AHSP and E2f2 loci require EKLF to cause the locus to become activated and sensitive to DNase I digestion in erythroid cells. Based on the increased frequency of intragenic EKLF-binding sites, particularly in genes of the cell cycle network, we propose that the occupancy of intragenic sites by EKLF may facilitate chromatin modification.

Covid 19 – living the experience As I sit at my desk at home in suburban Brisbane, following the dictates on self-isolation shared with so many around the world, I am forced to contemplate the limits of human prediction. I look out on a world which few could have predicted six months ago. My thoughts at that time were all about 2020 as a metaphor for perfect vision and a plea for it to herald a new period of clarity which would arm us in resolving the whole host of false divisions that surrounded us. False, because so many appear to be generated by the use of polarised labelling strategies which sought to categorise humans by a whole range of identities, while losing the essential humanity and individuality which we all share. This was a troublesome trend and one which seemed reminiscent of the biblical tale concerning the tower of Babel, when a single unified language was what we needed to create harmony in a globalising world. However, yesterday’s concerns have, at least for the moment, been overshadowed by a more urgent and unifying concern with humanity’s health and wellbeing. For now, this concern has created a world which we would not have recognised in 2019. We rely more than ever on our various forms of electronic media to beam instant shots of the streets of London, New York, Berlin, Paris, Hong Kong etc. These centres of our worldly activity normally characterised by hustle and bustle, are now serenely peaceful and ordered. Their magnificent buildings have become foregrounded, assuming a dignity and presence that is more commonly overshadowed by the mad ceaseless scramble of humanity all around them. From there however the cameras can jump to some of the less fortunate areas of the globe. These streets are still teeming with people in close confined areas. There is little hope here of following frequent extended hand washing practices, let alone achieving the social distance prescribed to those of us in the global North. From this desk top perspective, it has been interesting to chart the mood as the crisis has unfolded. It has moved from a slightly distant sense of superiority as the news slowly unfolded about events in remote Wuhan. The explanation that the origins were from a live market, where customs unfamiliar to our hygienic pre-packaged approach to food consumption were practised, added to this sense of separateness and exoticism surrounding the source and initial development of the virus. However, this changed to a growing sense of concern as its growth and transmission slowly began to reveal the vulnerability of all cultures to its spread. At this early stage, countries who took steps to limit travel from infected areas seemed to gain some advantage. Australia, as just one example banned flights from China and required all Chinese students coming to study in Australia to self-isolate for two weeks in a third intermediate port. It was a step that had considerable economic costs associated with it. One that was vociferously resisted at the time by the university sector increasingly dependent on the revenue generated by servicing Chinese students. But it was when the epicentre moved to northern Italy, that the entire messaging around the event began to change internationally. At this time the tone became increasingly fearful, anxious and urgent as reports of overwhelmed hospitals and mass burials began to dominate the news. Consequently, governments attracted little criticism but were rather widely supported in the action of radically closing down their countries in order to limit human interaction. The debate had become one around the choice between health and economic wellbeing. The fact that the decision has been overwhelmingly for health, has been encouraging. It has not however stopped the pressure from those who believe that economic well-being is a determinant of human well-being, questioning the decisions of politicians and the advice of public health scientists that have dominated the responses to date. At this stage, the lives versus livelihoods debate has a long way still to run. Of some particular interest has been the musings of the opinion writers who have predicted that the events of these last months will change our world forever. Some of these predictions have included the idea that rather than piling into common office spaces working remotely from home and other advantageous locations will be here to stay. Schools and universities will become centres of learning more conveniently accessed on-line rather than face to face. Many shopping centres will become redundant and goods will increasingly be delivered via collection centres or couriers direct to the home. Social distancing will impact our consumption of entertainment at common venues and lifestyle events such as dining out. At the macro level, it has been predicted that globalisation in its present form will be reversed. The pandemic has led to actions being taken at national levels and movement being controlled by the strengthening and increased control of physical borders. Tourism has ground to a halt and may not resume on its current scale or in its present form as unnecessary travel, at least across borders, will become permanently reduced. Advocates of change have pointed to some of the unpredicted benefits that have been occurring. These include a drop in air pollution: increased interaction within families; more reading undertaken by younger adults; more systematic incorporation of exercise into daily life, and; a rediscovered sense of community with many initiatives paying tribute to the health and essential services workers who have been placed at the forefront of this latest struggle with nature. Of course, for all those who point to benefits in the forced lifestyle changes we have been experiencing, there are those who would tell a contrary tale. Demonstrations in the US have led the push by those who just want things to get back to normal as quickly as possible. For this group, confinement at home creates more problems. These may be a function of the proximity of modern cramped living quarters, today’s crowded city life, dysfunctional relationships, the boredom of self-entertainment or simply the anxiety that comes with an insecure livelihood and an unclear future. Personally however, I am left with two significant questions about our future stimulated by the events that have been ushered in by 2020. The first is how is it that the world has been caught so unprepared by this pandemic? The second is to what extent do we have the ability to recalibrate our current practices and view an alternative future? In considering the first, it has been enlightening to observe the extent to which politicians have turned to scientific expertise in order to determine their actions. Terms like ‘flattening the curve’, ‘community transmission rates’, have become part of our daily lexicon as the statistical modellers advance their predictions as to how the disease will spread and impact on our health systems. The fact that scientists are presented as the acceptable and credible authority and the basis for our actions reflects a growing dependency on data and modelling that has infused our society generally. This acceptance has been used to strengthen the actions on behalf of the human lives first and foremost position. For those who pursue the livelihoods argument even bigger figures are available to be thrown about. These relate to concepts such as numbers of jobless, increase in national debt, growth in domestic violence, rise in mental illness etc. However, given that they are more clearly estimates and based on less certain assumptions and variables, they do not at this stage seem to carry the impact of the data produced by public health experts. This is not surprising but perhaps not justifiable when we consider the failure of the public health lobby to adequately prepare or forewarn us of the current crisis in the first place. Statistical predictive models are built around historical data, yet their accuracy depends upon the quality of those data. Their robustness for extrapolation to new settings for example will differ as these differ in a multitude of subtle ways from the contexts in which they were initially gathered. Our often uncritical dependence upon ‘scientific’ processes has become worrying, given that as humans, even when guided by such useful tools, we still tend to repeat mistakes or ignore warnings. At such a time it is an opportunity for us to return to the reservoir of human wisdom to be found in places such as our great literature. Works such as The Plague by Albert Camus make fascinating and educative reading for us at this time. As the writer observes Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world, yet somehow, we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky. There have been as many plagues as wars in history, yet always plagues and wars take people equally by surprise. So it is that we constantly fail to study let alone learn the lessons of history. Yet 2020 mirrors 1919, as at that time the world was reeling with the impact of the Spanish ‘Flu, which infected 500 million people and killed an estimated 50 million. This was more than the 40 million casualties of the four years of the preceding Great War. There have of course been other pestilences since then and much more recently. Is our stubborn failure to learn because we fail to value history and the knowledge of our forebears? Yet we can accept with so little question the accuracy of predictions based on numbers, even with varying and unquestioned levels of validity and reliability. As to the second question, many writers have been observing some beneficial changes in our behaviour and our environment, which have emerged in association with this sudden break in our normal patterns of activity. It has given us the excuse to reevaluate some of our practices and identify some clear benefits that have been occurring. As Australian newspaper columnist Bernard Salt observes in an article titled “the end of narcissism?” I think we’ve been re-evaluating the entire contribution/reward equation since the summer bushfires and now, with the added experience of the pandemic, we can see the shallowness of the so-called glamour professions – the celebrities, the influencers. We appreciate the selflessness of volunteer firefighters, of healthcare workers and supermarket staff. From the pandemic’s earliest days, glib forays into social media by celebrities seeking attention and yet further adulation have been met with stony disapproval. Perhaps it is best that they stay offline while our real heroes do the heavy lifting. To this sad unquestioning adherence to both scientism and narcissism, we can add and stir the framing of the climate rebellion and a myriad of familiar ‘first world’ problems which have caused dissension and disharmony in our communities. Now with an external threat on which to focus our attention, there has been a short lull in the endless bickering and petty point scoring that has characterised our western liberal democracies in the last decade. As Camus observed: The one way of making people hang together is to give ‘em a spell of the plague. So, the ceaseless din of the topics that have driven us apart has miraculously paused for at least a moment. Does this then provide a unique opportunity for us together to review our habitual postures and adopt a more conciliatory and harmonious communication style, take stock, critically evaluate and retune our approach to life – as individuals, as nations, as a species? It is not too difficult to hypothesise futures driven by the major issues that have driven us apart. Now, in our attempts to resist the virus, we have given ourselves a glimpse of some of the very things the climate change activists have wished to happen. With few planes in the air and the majority of cars off the roads, we have already witnessed clearer and cleaner air. Working at home has freed up the commuter driven traffic and left many people with more time to spend with their family. Freed from the continuing throng of tourists, cities like Venice are regenerating and cleansing themselves. This small preview of what a less travelled world might start to look like surely has some attraction. But of course, it does not come without cost. With the lack of tourism and the need to work at home, jobs and livelihoods have started to change. As with any revolution there are both winners and losers. The lockdown has distinguished starkly between essential and non-essential workers. That represents a useful starting point from which to assess what is truly of value in our way of life and what is peripheral as Salt made clear. This is a question that I would encourage readers to explore and to take forward with them through the resolution of the current situation. However, on the basis that educators are seen as providing essential services, now is the time to turn to the content of our current volume. Once again, I direct you to the truly international range of our contributors. They come from five different continents yet share a common focus on one of the most popular of shared cultural experiences – sport. Unsurprisingly three of our reviewed papers bring different insights to the world’s most widely shared sport of all – football, or as it would be more easily recognised in some parts of the globe - soccer. Leading these offerings is a comparison of fandom in Australia and China. The story presented by Knijnk highlights the rise of the fanatical supporters known as the ultras. The origin of the movement is traced to Italy, but it is one that claims allegiances now around the world. Kniijnk identifies the movement’s progression into Australia and China and, in pointing to its stance against the commercialisation of their sport by the scions of big business, argues for its deeper political significance and its commitment to the democratic ownership of sport. Reflecting the increasing availability and use of data in our modern societies, Karadog, Parim and Cene apply some of the immense data collected on and around the FIFA World Cup to the task of selecting the best team from the 2018 tournament held in Russia, a task more usually undertaken by panels of experts. Mindful of the value of using data in ways that can assist future decision making, rather than just in terms of summarising past events, they also use the statistics available to undertake a second task. The second task was the selection of the team with the greatest future potential by limiting eligibility to those at an early stage in their careers, namely younger than 28 and who arguably had still to attain their prime as well as having a longer career still ahead of them. The results for both selections confirm how membership of the wealthy European based teams holds the path to success and recognition at the global level no matter what the national origins of players might be. Thirdly, taking links between the sport and the world of finance a step further, Gomez-Martinez, Marques-Bogliani and Paule-Vianez report on an interesting study designed to test the hypothesis that sporting success within a community is reflected in positive economic outcomes for members of that community. They make a bold attempt to test their hypothesis by examining the relationship of the performance of three world leading clubs in Europe - Bayern Munich, Juventus and Paris Saint Germain and the performance of their local stock markets. Their findings make for some interesting thoughts about the significance of sport in the global economy and beyond into the political landscape of our interconnected world. Our final paper comes from Africa but for its subject matter looks to a different sport, one that rules the subcontinent of India - cricket. Norrbhai questions the traditional coaching of batting in cricket by examining the backlift techniques of the top players in the Indian Premier league. His findings suggest that even in this most traditional of sports, technique will develop and change in response to the changing context provided by the game itself. In this case the context is the short form of the game, introduced to provide faster paced entertainment in an easily consumable time span. It provides a useful reminder how in sport, techniques will not be static but will continue to evolve as the game that provides the context for the skilled performance also evolves. To conclude our pages, I must apologise that our usual book review has fallen prey to the current world disruption. In its place I would like to draw your attention to the announcement of a new publication which would make a worthy addition to the bookshelf of any international sports scholar. “Softpower, Soccer, Supremacy – The Chinese Dream” represents a unique and timely analysis of the movement of the most popular and influential game in the world – Association Football, commonly abbreviated to soccer - into the mainstream of Chinese national policy. The editorial team led by one of sports histories most recognised scholars, Professor J A Mangan, has assembled a who’s who of current scholars in sport in Asia. Together they provide a perspective that takes in, not just the Chinese view of these important current developments but also, the view of others in the geographical region. From Japan, Korea and Australia, they bring with them significant experience to not just the beautiful game, but sport in general in that dynamic and fast-growing part of the world. Particularly in the light of the European dominance identified in the Karog, Parim and Cene paper this work raises the question as to whether we can expect to see a change in the world order sooner rather than later. It remains for me to make one important acknowledgement. In my last editorial I alerted you to the sorts of decisions we as an editorial and publication team were facing with regard to ensuring the future of the journal. Debates as to how best to proceed while staying true to our vision and goals are still proceeding. However, I am pleased to acknowledge the sponsorship provided by The University of Macao for volume 42 and recognise the invaluable contribution made by ISCPES former president Walter Ho to this process. Sponsorship can provide an important input to the ongoing existence and strength of this journal and we would be interested in talking to other institutions or groups who might also be interested in supporting our work, particularly where their goals align closely with ours. May I therefore commend to you the works of our international scholars and encourage your future involvement in sharing your interest in and expertise with others in the world of comparative and international sport studies, John Saunders, Brisbane, May 2020

Understanding and management of the marine environment requires respect for, and inclusion of, Indigenous knowledge, cultures, and traditional practices. The Aha Honua, an ocean observing declaration from Coastal Indigenous Peoples, calls on the ocean observing community to “formally recognize the traditional knowledge of Indigenous peoples,” and “to learn and respect each other’s ways of knowing.” Ocean observing systems typically adopt open data sharing as a core principle, often requiring that data be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). Without modification, this approach to Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) would mean disregarding historical and ongoing injustices and imbalances in power, and information management principles designed to address these wrongs. Excluding TEK from global ocean observing is not equitable or desirable. Ocean observing systems tend to align with settler geography, but their chosen regions often include Indigenous coastal-dwelling communities that have acted as caretakers and stewards of the land and ocean for thousands of years. Achieving the call of Aha Honua will require building relationships that recognize Indigenous peoples play a special role in the area of ocean stewardship, care, and understanding. This review examines the current understanding of how Indigenous TEK can be successfully coordinated or utilized alongside western scientific systems, specifically the potential coordination of TEK with ocean observing systems. We identify relevant methods and collaborative projects, including cases where TEK has been collected, digitized and the meta(data) has been made open under some or all the FAIR principles. This review also highlights enabling factors that notably contribute to successful outcomes in digitization, and mitigation measures to avoid the decontextualization of TEK. Recommendations are primarily value- and process-based, rather than action-based, and acknowledge the key limitation that this review is based on extant written knowledge. In cases where examples are provided, or local context is necessary to be concrete, we refer to a motivating example of the nascent Atlantic Regional Association of the Canadian Integrated Ocean Observing System and their desire to build relationships with Indigenous communities.

Purpose Creative entrepreneurship has contributed to economic development of regions and countries and have become models for the countries in the Western world. Jewelry designer entrepreneurs are one of the contributors toward creative economy for their role in economic prosperity. This article aims to investigate brand-building efforts of jewelry designer entrepreneurs. This study also aims to explore how jewelry designer entrepreneurs develop and communicate brand narrative, and how brand backstories confer value to jewelry. Design/methodology/approach This study used a qualitative approach. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with seven Portuguese designer jewelry. Findings The study identified seven themes to reflect the brand narratives of the Portuguese jewelry designer entrepreneurs: designer artists considered the importance of international recognition; designer jewelry uses the ontological metaphor to connect emotionally; designer jewelry making a jewelry piece that is fluid and organic; limited association with fashion; distinctive brand communication; fair pricing strategy; and identifying self as artistic worker. The study also shows that jewelry designer entrepreneurs adopt a distinctive brand communication tactics to connect emotionally with imagine customers. Practical implications This study proposes a general and managerial guide to boost personal brand jewelry designer entrepreneurs through brand narratives. Originality/value This study bridges an academia gap on personal branding, exploring how jewelry designer entrepreneurs develop and communicate brand narrative and brand backstories adding value to the jewelry industry.

ABSTRACT: Objective: To describe complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) use amongst children with cerebral palsy (CP) in Canada and to identify factors associated with CAM use. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study, utilising data from the Canadian CP Registry. We explored the association between CAM use and regional, socioeconomic and CP phenotypic variables, and parental perception of the family-centredness of clinical care using the Measures of Process of Care-56 (MPOC-56). Chi-square analyses were performed, and odds ratios (OR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) were obtained. Mann–Whitney U tests were used to compare MPOC-56 scores between CAM users and non-CAM users. Results: The study sample consisted of 313 families of which 27% reported CAM use in the past year. Children with CP using CAM were more likely to reside in Western Canada (OR 3.3, 95% CI 1.6–6.7), live in a two-parent household (OR 3.5, 95% CI 1.5–8.4), have an ataxic/hypotonic or dyskinetic CP subtype (OR 3.0, 95% CI 1.5–6.1) and have a greater motor impairment (OR 2.8, 95% CI 1.7–4.9). MPOC-56 subscale scores were not significantly associated with CAM use. Conclusion: Physicians need to be aware of existing CAM therapies, the level of evidence supporting their efficacy (beneficence), their associated risks of adverse events (non-maleficence) and enable fair access to care that may be of benefit to each child.

Abstract Background In order to solve the problem of “expensive medical treatment and difficult medical treatment” for patients and improve the equity of medical services, China started the health-care reform in 2009, and proposed ambitious goals of providing fair and high-quality basic medical and health services to all citizens and reducing economic burden of diseases. This study was to systematically explore the association between population economic status and incidence of catastrophic health expenditures (CHE) in mainland China in the last decade since 2009 health reform. Methods This systematic review was reported according to the standard of preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA). We systematically searched Chinese Electronic literature Database of China Journal Full Text Database, Chinese Biomedical Journal Database, Wan fang Data Resource System, VIP Database, and English literature databases of PubMed, SCI, EMbase and Cochrane Library from January 2000 to June 2020, and references of included studies. Two reviewers independently selected all reports from 2000 to 2020 for empirical studies of CHE in mainland China, extracted data and evaluated the quality of the study. We conducted meta-analysis of the incidence of CHE and subgroup analysis according to the time of the study and the economic characteristics of residents. Results Four thousand eight hundred seventy-four records were retrieved and eventually 47 studies with 151,911 participants were included. The quality scores of most of studies were beyond 4 points (91.49%). The pooled incidence of CHE of Chinese residents in the last two decades was 23.3% (95% CI: 21.1 to 25.6%). The CHE incidence increased from 2000 to 2017, then decreased over time from 2017 to 2020. From 2000 to 2020, the CHE incidence in rural areas was 25.0% (95% CI: 20.9 to 29.1%) compared to urban 20.9% (95% CI: 18.3 to 23.4%); the CHE incidence in eastern, central and western China was 25.0% (95% CI: 19.2 to 30.8%), 25.4% (95% CI: 18.4 to 32.3%), and 23.1% (95% CI: 17.9 to 28.2%), respectively; the CHE incidence was 30.9% (95% CI: 22.4 to 39.5%), 20.3% (95% CI: 17.0 to 23.6%), 19.9% (95% CI: 15.6 to 24.1%), and 23.7% (95% CI: 18.0 to 29.3%) in poverty group, low-income group, middle-income group, and high-income group, respectively. Conclusions In the past two decade, the incidence of CHE in rural areas is higher than that of urban residents; higher in central areas than in eastern, western and other regions; in poverty households than in low-income, middle-income and high-income regions. Further measures should be taken to reduce the incidence of CHE in susceptible people.

Abstract Objective To assess the relation between autocratisation—substantial decreases in democratic traits (free and fair elections, freedom of civil and political association, and freedom of expression)—and countries’ population health outcomes and progress toward universal health coverage (UHC). Design Synthetic control analysis. Setting and country selection Global sample of countries for all years from 1989 to 2019, split into two categories: 17 treatment countries that started autocratising during 2000 to 2010, and 119 control countries that never autocratised from 1989 to 2019. The treatment countries comprised low and middle income nations and represent all world regions except North America and western Europe. A weighted combination of control countries was used to construct synthetic controls for each treatment country. This statistical method is especially well suited to population level studies when random assignment is infeasible and sufficiently similar comparators are not available. The method was originally developed in economics and political science to assess the impact of policies and events, and it is now increasingly used in epidemiology. Main outcome measures HIV-free life expectancy at age 5 years, UHC effective coverage index (0-100 point scale), and out-of-pocket spending on health per capita. All outcome variables are for the period 1989 to 2019. Results Autocratising countries underperformed for all three outcome variables in the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation, despite some improvements in life expectancy, UHC effective coverage index, and out-of-pocket spending on health. On average, HIV-free life expectancy at age 5 years increased by 2.2% (from 64.7 to 66.1 years) during the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation. This study estimated that it would have increased by 3.5% (95% confidence interval 3.3% to 3.6%, P<0.001) (from 64.7 to 66.9 years) in the absence of autocratisation. On average, the UHC effective coverage index increased by 11.9% (from 42.5 to 47.6 points) during the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation. This study estimated that it would have increased by 20.2% (95% confidence interval 19.6% to 21.2%, P<0.001) (from 42.5 to 51.1 points) in the absence of autocratisation. Finally, on average, out-of-pocket spending on health per capita increased by 10.0% (from $4.00 (£3.1; €3.4) to $4.4, log transformed) during the 10 years after the onset of autocratisation. This study estimated that it would have increased by only 4.4% (95% confidence interval 3.9% to 4.6%, P<0.001) (from $4.0 to $4.2, log transformed) in the absence of autocratisation. Conclusions Autocratising countries had worse than estimated life expectancy, effective health service coverage, and levels of out-of-pocket spending on health. These results suggest that the noticeable increase in the number of countries that are experiencing democratic erosion in recent years is hindering population health gains and progress toward UHC. Global health institutions will need to adjust their policy recommendations and activities to obtain the best possible results in those countries with a diminishing democratic incentive to provide quality healthcare to populations.

Abstract Background Feline leishmaniosis is a vector-borne parasitic disease caused by Leishmania spp. Leishmania infection in dogs is prevalent in the Mediterranean basin, but in other animals, such as cats, it could also play a role in the epidemiology of the disease. Information on the geographical distribution and epidemiological features of L. infantum infection in cats is scarce, particularly in urban stray cats living in regions where canine leishmaniosis is endemic. As diagnosis can be challenging, combining different serological and molecular methods is a useful approach. Our aim was to investigate the prevalence of infection of L. infantum in apparently healthy stray cats in an endemic region of Spain (Zaragoza city) using serological and molecular methods, and to compare the results of the different techniques. Methods The prevalence of Leishmania infection was studied in stray cats captured in urban and peri-urban areas of Zaragoza. Blood was collected from each animal for serology and molecular analysis. Three serological methods, namely the immunofluorescent antibody test (IFAT), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and western blot (WB), were used to detect L. infantum antibodies and a real-time PCR (qPCR) assay was used to detect L. infantum DNA. The results were analyzed by Fisher’s exact test and Cohen’s kappa statistic (κ) to assess the level of agreement between the diagnostic techniques. Results Serological analysis of blood samples from 180 stray cats revealed 2.2% (4/179) Leishmania infection positivity by IFAT, 2.8% (5/179) by ELISA and 14.5% (26/179) by WB. Leishmania DNA was detected by qPCR in 5.6% (10/179) of the cats. Sixteen cats (8.9%) tested positive by only one serological technique and four tested positive by all three serological methods used. The overall rate of infected cats (calculated as the number of cats seropositive and/or qPCR positive) was 15.6%, and only two cats tested positive by all the diagnostic methods. A significant association was found between male cats and a positive qPCR result. Comparison of the techniques revealed a fair agreement in seropositivity between blood qPCR and IFAT (κ = 0.26), blood qPCR and ELISA (κ = 0.24), WB and ELISA (κ = 0.37) and WB and IFAT (κ = 0.40). The highest agreement between seropositive results was between IFAT and ELISA (κ = 0.89), and the lowest was between blood qPCR and WB (κ = 0.19). The prevalence of the feline leukemia virus antigen was 4.49% (8/178 cats) and that of the feline immunodeficiency virus (FIV) antibody was 6.74% (12/178), while co-infection with both retroviruses was observed in one female cat (1/178). Leishmania ELISA and IFAT seropositivity were statistically associated with FIV status by the chi-square test. Conclusions The results obtained in this study, using serological tests and qPCR, indicate the existence of L. infantum asymptomatic infection in apparently healthy stray cats in the city of Zaragoza, an endemic area in Spain.

Abstract This article presents data collected in ethnographic research begun in 2014 at the Faia Brava Reserve in Portugal. The Faia Brava Reserve has been dedicated to ecological restoration by the association that manages it. This has made the reserve the starting point of an ambitious project for re-naturalizing the western region of the Iberian Peninsula, which foresees the reintroduction of large animal species in Portugal through its integration to the Rewilding Europe network. The article describes some of the steps necessary to the creation of re-naturalization areas, and some of the hypotheses associated to the re-naturalization project in Europe and particularly in Portugal.

In the 1980s, an extremely successful Nescafé Gold Blend coffee advertising campaign dared to posit, albeit subliminally, that a love relationship was inextricably linked to coffee. Over several years, an on-again off-again love affair appeared to unfold onscreen; its ups and downs narrated over shared cups of coffee. Although the association between the relationship and Gold Blend was loose at best, no direct link was required (O’Donohoe 62). The campaign’s success was its reprisal of the cultural myth prevalent in the West that coffee and love, coffee and relationships, indeed coffee and intimacy, are companionate items. And, the more stable lover, it would seem, is available on the supermarket shelf. Meeting for coffee, inviting a potential lover in for a late-night cup of coffee, or scheduling a business meeting in an espresso bar are clichés that refer to coffee consumption but have little to do with the actual product. After all, many a tea-drinker will invite friends or acquaintances “for coffee.” This is neatly acknowledged in a short romantic scene in the lauded feature film Good Will Hunting (1997) in which a potential lover’s suggestion of meeting for coffee is responded to smartly by the “genius” protagonist Will, “Maybe we could just get together and eat a bunch of caramels. [...] When you think about it, it’s just as arbitrary as drinking coffee.” It was a date, regardless. Many in the coffee industry will argue that coffee—rather than tea, or caramel—is legendary for its intrinsic capacity to foster and ignite new relationships and ideas. Coffee houses are repeatedly cited as the heady location for the beginnings of institutions from major insurance business Lloyd’s of London to the Boston Tea Party, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series of novels, and even Western Australian indie band Eskimo Joe. This narrative images the coffee house and café as a setting that supports ingenuity, success, and passion. It is tempting to suggest that something intrinsic in coffee renders it a Western social lubricant, economic powerhouse, and, perhaps, spiritual prosthesis. This paper will, however, argue that the social and cultural production of “coffee” cannot be dissociated from feeling. Feelings of care, love, inspiration, and desire constellate around “coffee” in a discourse of warm, fuzzy affect. I suggest that this blooming of affect is not superfluous but, instead, central to the way in which coffee is produced, represented and consumed in Western mass culture. By exploring the currently fashionable practice of “direct trade” between roasters and coffee growers as represented on the Websites of select Western roasting companies, the repetition of this discourse is abundantly clear. Here, the good feelings associated with cross-cultural friendship are figured as the condition and reward for the production of high quality coffee beans. Money, it seems, does not buy happiness—but good quality coffee can. Good (Colonial) Feelings Before exploring the discursive representation of friendship and good feeling among the global coffee community with regard to direct trade, it is important to account for the importance of feeling as a narrative strategy with political affects and effects. In her discussion of “happy objects,” cultural theorist of emotion Sara Ahmed argues that specific objects are associated with feelings of happiness. She gives the telling example of coffee as an object intimately tied with happy feeling within the family. So you make coffee for the family, and you know “just“ how much sugar to put in this cup and that. Failure to know this “just“ is often felt as a failure of care. Even if we do not experience the same objects as being pleasurable, sharing the family means sharing happy objects, both in the sense of sharing knowledge (of what makes others happy) and also in the sense of distributing the objects in the right way (Ahmed, Promise 47). This idea is derived from Ahmed’s careful consideration of affective economies. She suggests emotions neither belong to, or are manufactured by, discrete individuals. Rather, emotions are formed through social exchange. Relieved of imagining the individual as the author of affect, we can consider the ways in which affect circulates as a product in a broad, vitalising economy of feeling (Ahmed, Affective 121). In the example above, feelings of care and intimacy attached to coffee-making produce the happy family, or more precisely, the fleeting instant of the family-as-happy. The condition of this good feeling is not attributable to the coffee as product nor the family as fundamentally happy but rather the rippling of happy feeling through sharing of the object deemed happy. A little too much sugar and happiness is thwarted, affect wanes; the coffee is now bad(-feeling). If we return briefly to the Nescafé Gold Blend campaign and, indeed, Good Will Hunting, we can postulate following Ahmed that the coffee functions as a love object. Proximity to coffee is identified by its apparent causation of love-effects. In this sense, “doing coffee” means making a fleeting cultural space for feeling love, or feeling good. But what happens when we turn from the good feeling of consumption to the complex question of coffee production and trade? How might good feeling attach to the process of procuring coffee beans? In this case, the way in which good feeling seems to “stick to” coffee in mass culture needs to be augmented with consideration of its status as a global commodity traded across sociopolitical, economic, cultural and national borders. Links between coffee and colonialism are long established. From the Dutch East India Company to the feverish enthusiasm to purchase mass plantations by multinational corporations, coffee, colonialism and practices of slavery and indentured labour are intertwined (Lyons 18-19). As a globally traded commodity across a range of political regimes and national borders, tracing the postcolonial and neocolonial relations between multinational companies, small upscale boutique roasters, plantation owners, coffee bean co-ops, regulatory bodies, and workers is complex at best. In what may appear a tangential approach, it is nonetheless instructive to consider that colonial relations are constituted through affective components that support and fuel economic and political exchange (Stoler, Haunted). Again, Ahmed offers a useful context for the relationship between the imperative toward happiness and colonial representation. The civilizing mission can be redescribed as a happiness mission. For happiness to become a mission, the colonized other must be first deemed unhappy. The imperial archive can be described as an archive of unhappiness. Colonial knowledges constitute the other as not only an object of knowledge, a truth to be discovered, but as being unhappy, as lacking the qualities or attributes required for a happier state of existence (Ahmed, Promise 125). The colonising aspect of the relations Ahmed describes includes the “mission” to construct Others as unhappy. Understood as happiness detractors, colonial Others become objects that threaten the radiant appeal of happiness as part of an imperial moral economy. Hence, it is the happiness of the colonisers that is secured through the disavowal of the feelings of Others. Moreover, by documenting colonial unhappiness, colonising forces justify the sanctity of happiness-making through violence. As Ann Stoler affirms, “Colonial states had a strong interest in affective knowledge and a sophisticated understanding of affective politics” (Carnal 142). Colonising discourses, then, are inextricably linked to regimes of sense and feeling. Stoler also writes that European-ness was established through cultivation of an inner sense of self-worth associated with ethics, individuality and autonomy (Haunted 157). The development of a sense of belonging to Europe was hence executed through feeling good in both moral and affective senses of the word. Although Stoler argues her case in terms of the affective politics of colonial sexualities and desire, her work is highly instructive for its argument that emotion is crucial to structures of power in colonial regimes. Bringing Stoler’s work into closer proximity with Ahmed’s postulation of State happiness and its objects, I am now going to suggest that coffee is a palimpsestic cultural site at which to explore the ways in which the politics of good feeling obscure discomforting and complex questions of power, exploitation, and disadvantage in global economies of coffee production and consumption. Direct Trade In the so-called “third wave” specialty coffee market that is enjoying robust growth in Australia, America, and Europe, “direct trade” across the globe between roasters and plantation owners is consistently represented as friendly and intimate despite vast distances and cultural difference. The “third wave” is a descriptor that, as John Manzo describes in his sociological exploration of coffee connoisseurship in privileged Western online and urban fora, refers to coffee enthusiasts interested in brewing devices beyond high-end espresso machines such as the cold drip, siphon, or pour-over. Jillian Adams writes further that third wavers: Appreciate the flavour nuances of single estate coffee; that is coffee that is sourced from single estates, farms, or villages in coffee growing regions. When processed carefully, it will have a distinctive flavour and taste profile that reflects the region and the culture of the coffee production (2). This focus on single estate or “single origin” coffee refers to beans procured from sections of estates and plantations called micro-lots, which are harvested and processed in a controlled manner.The third wave trend toward single origin coffees coincides with the advent of direct trade. Direct trade refers to the growing practice of bypassing “middlemen” to source coffee beans from plantations without appeal to or restriction by regulatory bodies. Rather, as I will show below, relationships and partnerships between growers and importers are imagined as sites of goodwill and good feeling. This focus on interpersonal relationships and friendships cannot be disarticulated from the broader cross-cultural context at stake. The relationships associated with direct trade invariably take place across borders that are also marked by economic, cultural and political differences in which privileged Western buyers engage with non-Western growers on low incomes. Drawing from Ahmed’s concern that the politics of good feeling is tied to colonial nostalgia, it is compelling to suggest that direct trade is haunted by discourses of colonisation. At this point of intersection, I suggest that Western mass cultural associations of coffee with ease, intimacy and pure intentions invite consumers to join a neocolonial saga through partaking in imagined communities of global coffee friends. Particularly popular in Australia and America, direct trade is espoused by key third wave coffee roasters in Melbourne, Portland and Seattle. Melbourne Coffee Merchants are perhaps the most well-known importers of directly traded green bean in Australia. On their Web page they describe the importance of sharing good feelings about high quality coffee: “We aim to share, educate, and inspire, and get people as excited about quality coffee as we are.” A further page describing the Merchants’s mission explains, “Growers are treated as partners in the mission to get the worlds [sic] finest beans into the hands of discerning customers.” The quality of excitement that circulates through the procuring of green beans is related to the deemed partnership between Merchants and the growers. That is, it is not the fact of the apparent partnership or its banality that is important, but the treating of growers as partners that signifies Merchants’s mission to generate good feeling. This is a slight but crucial distinction. Treating the growers as partners participates in an affective economy of excitement and inspiration—how the growers feel is, presumably, in want of such partnership.Not dissimilarly, Five Senses Coffee, boutique roasters in Melbourne and Perth, offer an emotional bonus with the purchase of directly traded coffees. “So go on, select one of our Direct Trade products and bask in the warm glow you get knowing that the farmer who grew the beans that you’re enjoying is reaping the rewards too!” The rewards that the growers are deemed to be receiving are briefly explained in blog posts on the Five Senses news Web page. I am not suggesting that these friendships and projects are not legitimate. Rather, the willingness of Five Senses to negotiate rates with growers and provide the community with an English teacher, for example, fuels an economy of Westerners’s good feelings and implies conventional trading produces unhappiness. This obscures grounds for concern that the provision of an English teacher might indeed serve the interests of colonising discourses. Perhaps a useful entry point into this narrative form is founded in the recently self-published book Coffee Trails by Toby Smith, founder of boutique Australian roaster Toby’s Estate. The book is described on the Toby’s Estate Web page as follows:Filled with personal anecdotes and illustrating his relationships developed over years of visiting the farmers to source his coffee beans, Smith’s commentary of his travels, including a brush with Jamaican customs officials and a trip to a notoriously dangerous Ethiopian market, paints an authentic picture of the colourful countries that produce the second most traded product in the world. [...] Coffee Trails has been Smith’s labour of love over the past two years and the end product is a wonderfully personal account of a man fulfilling his lifelong dream and following his passion across the world. Again, the language of “passion” and “love” registers direct trade coffee as a happy object. Furthermore, despite the fact that coffee is also grown in Australia, the countries that are most vivid in the epic imagination are those associated with “exotic” locations such as Ethiopia and Jamaica. This is arguably registered through the sense that these locations were where Smith encountered danger. Having embarked on a version of the quintessential hero’s journey, Smith can be seen as devoted to, and inspired by, his love-object. His brushes with uncivilised authorities and locations carry the undertones of a colonial imaginary, in which it can be argued Smith’s Western-ness is established and secured as goodwill-invoking. After all, he locates and develops relationships with farmers and buys their coffee which, following the logic of happy objects, disperses and shares good feelings.Gloria Jean’s Coffees, which occupies a similar market position in Australia to the multinational “specialty” coffee company Starbucks (Lyons), also participates in the dispersal of coffee as a happy object despite its mass scale of production and lack of direct trade capability (not unexpectedly, Starbucks hosts a Relationships campaign aimed at supporting humanitarian initiatives and communities). Gloria Jean’s campaign With Heart allocates resources to humanitarian activities in local Australian communities and worldwide in coffee-growing regions. Their Web page states: “With Heart is woven throughout Gloria Jeans Coffee houses and operations by the active participation of Franchise Partners, support office and team members and championed across Australia, by our With Heart Ambassadors.“ The associative message is clear: Gloria Jean’s Coffees is a company indissociable from “heart,” or perhaps loving care, for community.By purchasing coffee, Gloria Jean’s customers can be seen to be supporting heartening community projects, and are perhaps unwittingly working as ambassadors for the affective economy in which proximity to the happy object—the heart-centred coffee company—indicates the procurement of happiness for someone, somewhere. The sale of good feeling enables specialty coffee companies such as Gloria Jean’s to bypass market opportunities associated with Fair Trade regulatory provisions, which, as Carl Obermiller et al. find in their study of Fair Trade buying patterns, also profit from consumers’ purchase of good feeling associated with ethically-produced objects. Instead, assuring consumers of its heart-centredness, Gloria Jean’s Coffees is represented as an embodiment not of fairness but kindness, and perhaps love, for others. The iconography and history of direct trade coffee is most closely linked to Intelligentsia Coffee of Chicago in the USA. Intelligentsia describes its third wave roasting and training business as the first to engage in direct trade in 2003. Its Web page includes an image of an airplane to which the following pop-up is linked: “Our focus is not just identifying quality coffee, but developing and rewarding it. To do this means preserving and developing strong relationships despite the considerable distance. At any given time, there is at least one Intelligentsia buyer at origin.” This text raises the question of what constitutes quality coffee. It would appear that “quality coffee” is knowledge that Intelligentsia owns, and which is rewarded financially when replicated to the satisfaction of Intelligentsia. The strength of the relationships in this interaction is closely linked to the meeting of clear conditions and expectations. Indeed, we are reassured that “at any time” an Intelligentsia buyer is applying these conditions to the product. Quality, then, is at least in part achieved by Intelligentsia through its commitment to travelling long distances to oversee the activities and practices of growers. This paternalistic structure is figured in terms of “strong relationships” rather than, perhaps, a rigorous and shrewd business model (which is assumedly the province of mass-market Others).Amid numerous examples found in even a cursory search on the Web, the overwhelming message of direct trade is of good feeling through care. Long term relationships, imagined as virtuous despite the opacity of the negotiation procedure in most cases, narrates the conviction that relationship in and of itself is a good in what might be called the colonial redramatisation staked by an affective coffee economy. Conclusion: Mourning CoffeeIn a paper on happiness, it might appear out of place to reference grief. Yet Jacques Derrida’s explication of friendship in his rousing collection The Work of Mourning is instructive. He writes that death is accommodated and acknowledged “in the undeniable anticipation of mourning that constitutes friendship” (159). Derrida maintains close attention to the productivity and intensity of Otherness in mourning. Thus, friendship is structurally dependent on impending loss, and it follows that there can be no loss without recognising the Otherness of the other, as it were. Given indifference to difference and, hence, loss, it is possible to interpret the friendships affirmed within direct trade practices as supported by a kind of mania. The exuberant dispersal of good feeling through directly traded coffee is narrated by emotional journeys to the primordial beginnings of the happy-making object. That is, fixation upon the object’s brief survival in “primitive” circumstances before its perfect demise in the cup of discerning Western clientele suggests a process of purification through colonising Western knowledges and care. If I may risk a misappropriation of Sara Ahmed’s words; so you make the trip to origin, and you know “just” what to pay for this bean and that. Failure to know this “just” is often felt as a failure of care. But, for whom?References Adams, Jillian. “Thoroughly Modern Coffee.” TEXT Rewriting the Menu: The Cultural Dynamics of Contemporary Food Choices. Eds. Adele Wessell and Donna Lee Brien. TEXT Special Issue 9 (2010). 27 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.textjournal.com.au/speciss/issue9/content.htm›. Ahmed, Sara. “Affective Economies.” Social Text 79 22.2 (2004): 117-39 . -----. “The Politics of Good Feeling.” Australian Critical Race and Whiteness Studies Association E-Journal 5.1 (2008): 1-18. -----. The Promise of Happiness. Durham: Duke UP, 2010. Derrida, Jacques. The Work of Mourning. Eds. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas. Chicago; London: U Chicago P, 2003. Five Senses Coffee. “Coffee Affiliations.” 27 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.fivesenses.com.au/coffee/affiliations/direct-trade›. Gloria Jean’s Coffees. “With Heart.” 27 Feb. 2012 ‹http://www.gloriajeanscoffees.com/au/Humanitarian/AboutUs.aspx›. Good Will Hunting. Dir. Gus Van Sant. Miramax, 1997. Intelligentsia Coffee. “Direct Trade.” 28 Feb. 2012 ‹http://directtradecoffee.com/›. Lyons, James. “Think Seattle, Act Globally: Specialty Coffee, Commodity Biographies and the Promotion of Place.” Cultural Studies 19.1 (2005): 14-34. Manzo, John. “Coffee, Connoisseurship, and an Ethnomethodologically-Informed Sociology of Taste.” Human Studies 33 (2010): 141-55. Melbourne Coffee Merchants. “About Us.” 27 Feb. 2012 ‹http://melbournecoffeemerchants.com.au/about.asp›. Obermiller, Carl, Chauncy Burke, Erin Tablott and Gareth P. Green. “’Taste Great or More Fulfilling’: The Effect of Brand Reputation on Consumer Social Responsibility Advertising for Fair Trade Coffee.” Corporate Reputation Review 12.2 (2009): 159-76. O’Donohoe, Stephanie. “Advertising Uses and Gratifications.” European Journal of Marketing 28.8/9 (1993): 52-75. Smith, Toby. Coffee Trails: A Social and Environment Journey with Toby’s Estate. Sydney: Toby Smith, 2011. Stoler, Ann Laura. Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. California: U California P, 2002. -----. Haunted by Empire: Geographies of Intimacy in North American History. Durham: Duke UP, 2006. Toby’s Estate. “Toby Smith’s Coffee Trails.” 27 Feb 2012 ‹http://www.tobysestate.com.au/index.php/toby-smith-book-coffee-trails.html›.

Abstract Background Epidemiological studies of insomnia in the Middle East remain scarce. The present study aimed to estimate the prevalence of insomnia and explore its associations in the general population of Qatar. With almost 100 nationalities, Qatar is one of the most culturally diverse, richest, and fastest developing countries in the Arabian Peninsula. Methods A probability sample of community-dwelling adults were surveyed in February of 2019. A total of 1611 respondents completed face-to-face interviews in Arabic or English. Logistic regression modeled associations with insomnia, our dependent variable, as defined by a score of ≤16 on the eight-item Sleep Condition Indicator or according to criteria for insomnia in the Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition or DSM-5. Results Approximately, 5.5% of the sample screened positive for insomnia and the 30-day prevalence of those who met all the DSM-5 criteria for insomnia disorder was 3.0%. In addition, 2.0% of the sample screened positive for depression and 3.4% for anxiety in the past 2 weeks. Multivariable analysis showed the following were significantly associated with insomnia: Arab ethnicity, young age, unemployment, being married, having less than high school education, fair or poor health, anxiety, and depression. Conclusions Insomnia prevalence was in the lower range of previously reported DSM-defined estimates from developed Western countries. Our findings highlight the need for raising awareness and improving sleep hygiene in potential risk groups such as younger adults and those of Arab ethnicity, in addition to incorporating insomnia screening in the provision of mental health services.

Background: Although the association between human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and mucocutaneous diseases has been well studied within South African specialist centres, there is limited data from district-level hospitals. Available data may, therefore, fail to reflect the prevalence and full spectrum of dermatoses seen in people living with HIV (PLWH).Objectives: To determine the prevalence and spectrum of dermatoses seen in PLWH.Method: We conducted a cross-sectional, descriptive study of 970 PLWH (men and women, ≥ 18 years old) accessing care at Karl Bremer Hospital, a district-level hospital located in the Western Cape province, South Africa, between 01 September 2016 and 28 February 2017.Results: The prevalence of mucocutaneous disease in this sample was 12.7% (95% confidence interval [CI] 0.11–0.15). Non-infectious dermatoses comprised 71.0% of the disorders. Pruritic papular eruption (20.0%) and seborrheic dermatitis (6.0%) were the most common non-infectious dermatoses. Tinea corporis (8.0%) and oral candidiasis (6.0%) were the most prevalent infectious dermatoses. There was no significant association between skin disease category (infectious or non-infectious dermatoses) and patient demographics (gender and ethnicity) or HIV-disease characteristics (CD4+ cell count, viral load and duration of antiretroviral therapy [ART]).Conclusion: This study provides valuable scientific data on the prevalence and spectrum of mucocutaneous disease in PLWH attending a South African district-level hospital. Prospective studies conducted in other district-level centres across the country are required to determine the lifetime prevalence and spectrum of dermatoses in PLWH in the ART era.

Background: South Africa currently faces an increasing burden of cardiovascular disease. Although referred to clinics after community screening initiatives, few individuals who are identified to be at high risk for developing cardiovascular disease attend. Low health literacy and risk perception have been identified as possible causes. We investigated the knowledge and perceptions about risk for cardiovascular disease in a community.Method: We conducted a series of focus group discussions with individuals from a low incomeperi-urban community in the Western Cape, South Africa. Different methods of presenting risk were explored. The data were organised into themes and analysed to find associations between themes to provide explanations for our findings.Results: Respondents’ knowledge of cardiovascular disease and its risk factors varied, but most were familiar with the terms used to describe cardiovascular disease. In contrast, understanding of the concept of risk was poor. Risk was perceived as a binary concept and evaluation of different narrative and visual methods of presenting risk was not possible.Conclusion: Understanding cardiovascular disease and its risk factors requires a different set of skills from that needed to understand uncertainty and risk. The former requires knowledge of facts, whereas understanding of risk requires numerical and computational skills. Without a better understanding of risk, risk assessments for cardiovascular disease may fail in this community.

Introduction Eating is one of the most quintessential activities of human life. Because of this primacy, eating is, as food anthropologist Sidney Mintz has observed, “not merely a biological activity, but a vibrantly cultural activity as well” (48). This article posits that the current awareness of climate change in the Western world is animating such cultural activity as the Slow Food movement and is, as a result, stimulating what could be seen as an evolutionary change in popular foodways. Moreover, this paper suggests that, in line with modelling provided by the Slow Food example, an increased awareness of the connections of climate change to the social injustices of food production might better drive social change in such areas. This discussion begins by proposing that contemporary foodways—defined as “not only what is eaten by a particular group of people but also the variety of customs, beliefs and practices surrounding the production, preparation and presentation of food” (Davey 182)—are changing in the West in relation to current concerns about climate change. Such modification has a long history. Since long before the inception of modern Homo sapiens, natural climate change has been a crucial element driving hominidae evolution, both biologically and culturally in terms of social organisation and behaviours. Macroevolutionary theory suggests evolution can dramatically accelerate in response to rapid shifts in an organism’s environment, followed by slow to long periods of stasis once a new level of sustainability has been achieved (Gould and Eldredge). There is evidence that ancient climate change has also dramatically affected the rate and course of cultural evolution. Recent work suggests that the end of the last ice age drove the cultural innovation of animal and plant domestication in the Middle East (Zeder), not only due to warmer temperatures and increased rainfall, but also to a higher level of atmospheric carbon dioxide which made agriculture increasingly viable (McCorriston and Hole, cited in Zeder). Megadroughts during the Paleolithic might well have been stimulating factors behind the migration of hominid populations out of Africa and across Asia (Scholz et al). Thus, it is hardly surprising that modern anthropogenically induced global warming—in all its’ climate altering manifestations—may be driving a new wave of cultural change and even evolution in the West as we seek a sustainable homeostatic equilibrium with the environment of the future. In 1962, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring exposed some of the threats that modern industrial agriculture poses to environmental sustainability. This prompted a public debate from which the modern environmental movement arose and, with it, an expanding awareness and attendant anxiety about the safety and nutritional quality of contemporary foods, especially those that are grown with chemical pesticides and fertilizers and/or are highly processed. This environmental consciousness led to some modification in eating habits, manifest by some embracing wholefood and vegetarian dietary regimes (or elements of them). Most recently, a widespread awareness of climate change has forced rapid change in contemporary Western foodways, while in other climate related areas of socio-political and economic significance such as energy production and usage, there is little evidence of real acceleration of change. Ongoing research into the effects of this expanding environmental consciousness continues in various disciplinary contexts such as geography (Eshel and Martin) and health (McMichael et al). In food studies, Vileisis has proposed that the 1970s environmental movement’s challenge to the polluting practices of industrial agri-food production, concurrent with the women’s movement (asserting women’s right to know about everything, including food production), has led to both cooks and eaters becoming increasingly knowledgeable about the links between agricultural production and consumer and environmental health, as well as the various social justice issues involved. As a direct result of such awareness, alternatives to the industrialised, global food system are now emerging (Kloppenberg et al.). The Slow Food (R)evolution The tenets of the Slow Food movement, now some two decades old, are today synergetic with the growing consternation about climate change. In 1983, Carlo Petrini formed the Italian non-profit food and wine association Arcigola and, in 1986, founded Slow Food as a response to the opening of a McDonalds in Rome. From these humble beginnings, which were then unashamedly positing a return to the food systems of the past, Slow Food has grown into a global organisation that has much more future focused objectives animating its challenges to the socio-cultural and environmental costs of industrial food. Slow Food does have some elements that could be classed as reactionary and, therefore, the opposite of evolutionary. In response to the increasing homogenisation of culinary habits around the world, for instance, Slow Food’s Foundation for Biodiversity has established the Ark of Taste, which expands upon the idea of a seed bank to preserve not only varieties of food but also local and artisanal culinary traditions. In this, the Ark aims to save foods and food products “threatened by industrial standardization, hygiene laws, the regulations of large-scale distribution and environmental damage” (SFFB). Slow Food International’s overarching goals and activities, however, extend far beyond the preservation of past foodways, extending to the sponsoring of events and activities that are attempting to create new cuisine narratives for contemporary consumers who have an appetite for such innovation. Such events as the Salone del Gusto (Salon of Taste) and Terra Madre (Mother Earth) held in Turin every two years, for example, while celebrating culinary traditions, also focus on contemporary artisanal foods and sustainable food production processes that incorporate the most current of agricultural knowledge and new technologies into this production. Attendees at these events are also driven by both an interest in tradition, and their own very current concerns with health, personal satisfaction and environmental sustainability, to change their consumer behavior through an expanded self-awareness of the consequences of their individual lifestyle choices. Such events have, in turn, inspired such events in other locations, moving Slow Food from local to global relevance, and affecting the intellectual evolution of foodway cultures far beyond its headquarters in Bra in Northern Italy. This includes in the developing world, where millions of farmers continue to follow many traditional agricultural practices by necessity. Slow Food Movement’s forward-looking values are codified in the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture 2006 publication, Manifesto on the Future of Food. This calls for changes to the World Trade Organisation’s rules that promote the globalisation of agri-food production as a direct response to the “climate change [which] threatens to undermine the entire natural basis of ecologically benign agriculture and food preparation, bringing the likelihood of catastrophic outcomes in the near future” (ICFFA 8). It does not call, however, for a complete return to past methods. To further such foodway awareness and evolution, Petrini founded the University of Gastronomic Sciences at Slow Food’s headquarters in 2004. The university offers programs that are analogous with the Slow Food’s overall aim of forging sustainable partnerships between the best of old and new practice: to, in the organisation’s own words, “maintain an organic relationship between gastronomy and agricultural science” (UNISG). In 2004, Slow Food had over sixty thousand members in forty-five countries (Paxson 15), with major events now held each year in many of these countries and membership continuing to grow apace. One of the frequently cited successes of the Slow Food movement is in relation to the tomato. Until recently, supermarkets stocked only a few mass-produced hybrids. These cultivars were bred for their disease resistance, ease of handling, tolerance to artificial ripening techniques, and display consistency, rather than any culinary values such as taste, aroma, texture or variety. In contrast, the vine ripened, ‘farmer’s market’ tomato has become the symbol of an “eco-gastronomically” sustainable, local and humanistic system of food production (Jordan) which melds the best of the past practice with the most up-to-date knowledge regarding such farming matters as water conservation. Although the term ‘heirloom’ is widely used in relation to these tomatoes, there is a distinctively contemporary edge to the way they are produced and consumed (Jordan), and they are, along with other organic and local produce, increasingly available in even the largest supermarket chains. Instead of a wholesale embrace of the past, it is the connection to, and the maintenance of that connection with, the processes of production and, hence, to the environment as a whole, which is the animating premise of the Slow Food movement. ‘Slow’ thus creates a gestalt in which individuals integrate their lifestyles with all levels of the food production cycle and, hence to the environment and, importantly, the inherently related social justice issues. ‘Slow’ approaches emphasise how the accelerated pace of contemporary life has weakened these connections, while offering a path to the restoration of a sense of connectivity to the full cycle of life and its relation to place, nature and climate. In this, the Slow path demands that every consumer takes responsibility for all components of his/her existence—a responsibility that includes becoming cognisant of the full story behind each of the products that are consumed in that life. The Slow movement is not, however, a regime of abstention or self-denial. Instead, the changes in lifestyle necessary to support responsible sustainability, and the sensual and aesthetic pleasure inherent in such a lifestyle, exist in a mutually reinforcing relationship (Pietrykowski 2004). This positive feedback loop enhances the potential for promoting real and long-term evolution in social and cultural behaviour. Indeed, the Slow zeitgeist now informs many areas of contemporary culture, with Slow Travel, Homes, Design, Management, Leadership and Education, and even Slow Email, Exercise, Shopping and Sex attracting adherents. Mainstreaming Concern with Ethical Food Production The role of the media in “forming our consciousness—what we think, how we think, and what we think about” (Cunningham and Turner 12)—is self-evident. It is, therefore, revealing in relation to the above outlined changes that even the most functional cookbooks and cookery magazines (those dedicated to practical information such as recipes and instructional technique) in Western countries such as the USA, UK and Australian are increasingly reflecting and promoting an awareness of ethical food production as part of this cultural change in food habits. While such texts have largely been considered as useful but socio-politically relatively banal publications, they are beginning to be recognised as a valid source of historical and cultural information (Nussel). Cookbooks and cookery magazines commonly include discussion of a surprising range of issues around food production and consumption including sustainable and ethical agricultural methods, biodiversity, genetic modification and food miles. In this context, they indicate how rapidly the recent evolution of foodways has been absorbed into mainstream practice. Much of such food related media content is, at the same time, closely identified with celebrity mass marketing and embodied in the television chef with his or her range of branded products including their syndicated articles and cookbooks. This commercial symbiosis makes each such cuisine-related article in a food or women’s magazine or cookbook, in essence, an advertorial for a celebrity chef and their named products. Yet, at the same time, a number of these mass media food celebrities are raising public discussion that is leading to consequent action around important issues linked to climate change, social justice and the environment. An example is Jamie Oliver’s efforts to influence public behaviour and government policy, a number of which have gained considerable traction. Oliver’s 2004 exposure of the poor quality of school lunches in Britain (see Jamie’s School Dinners), for instance, caused public outrage and pressured the British government to commit considerable extra funding to these programs. A recent study by Essex University has, moreover, found that the academic performance of 11-year-old pupils eating Oliver’s meals improved, while absenteeism fell by 15 per cent (Khan). Oliver’s exposé of the conditions of battery raised hens in 2007 and 2008 (see Fowl Dinners) resulted in increased sales of free-range poultry, decreased sales of factory-farmed chickens across the UK, and complaints that free-range chicken sales were limited by supply. Oliver encouraged viewers to lobby their local councils, and as a result, a number banned battery hen eggs from schools, care homes, town halls and workplace cafeterias (see, for example, LDP). The popular penetration of these ideas needs to be understood in a historical context where industrialised poultry farming has been an issue in Britain since at least 1848 when it was one of the contributing factors to the establishment of the RSPCA (Freeman). A century after Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle (published in 1906) exposed the realities of the slaughterhouse, and several decades since Peter Singer’s landmark Animal Liberation (1975) and Tom Regan’s The Case for Animal Rights (1983) posited the immorality of the mistreatment of animals in food production, it could be suggested that Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth (released in 2006) added considerably to the recent concern regarding the ethics of industrial agriculture. Consciousness-raising bestselling books such as Jim Mason and Peter Singer’s The Ethics of What We Eat and Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma (both published in 2006), do indeed ‘close the loop’ in this way in their discussions, by concluding that intensive food production methods used since the 1950s are not only inhumane and damage public health, but are also damaging an environment under pressure from climate change. In comparison, the use of forced labour and human trafficking in food production has attracted far less mainstream media, celebrity or public attention. It could be posited that this is, in part, because no direct relationship to the environment and climate change and, therefore, direct link to our own existence in the West, has been popularised. Kevin Bales, who has been described as a modern abolitionist, estimates that there are currently more than 27 million people living in conditions of slavery and exploitation against their wills—twice as many as during the 350-year long trans-Atlantic slave trade. Bales also chillingly reveals that, worldwide, the number of slaves is increasing, with contemporary individuals so inexpensive to purchase in relation to the value of their production that they are disposable once the slaveholder has used them. Alongside sex slavery, many other prevalent examples of contemporary slavery are concerned with food production (Weissbrodt et al; Miers). Bales and Soodalter, for example, describe how across Asia and Africa, adults and children are enslaved to catch and process fish and shellfish for both human consumption and cat food. Other campaigners have similarly exposed how the cocoa in chocolate is largely produced by child slave labour on the Ivory Coast (Chalke; Off), and how considerable amounts of exported sugar, cereals and other crops are slave-produced in certain countries. In 2003, some 32 per cent of US shoppers identified themselves as LOHAS “lifestyles of health and sustainability” consumers, who were, they said, willing to spend more for products that reflected not only ecological, but also social justice responsibility (McLaughlin). Research also confirms that “the pursuit of social objectives … can in fact furnish an organization with the competitive resources to develop effective marketing strategies”, with Doherty and Meehan showing how “social and ethical credibility” are now viable bases of differentiation and competitive positioning in mainstream consumer markets (311, 303). In line with this recognition, Fair Trade Certified goods are now available in British, European, US and, to a lesser extent, Australian supermarkets, and a number of global chains including Dunkin’ Donuts, McDonalds, Starbucks and Virgin airlines utilise Fair Trade coffee and teas in all, or parts of, their operations. Fair Trade Certification indicates that farmers receive a higher than commodity price for their products, workers have the right to organise, men and women receive equal wages, and no child labour is utilised in the production process (McLaughlin). Yet, despite some Western consumers reporting such issues having an impact upon their purchasing decisions, social justice has not become a significant issue of concern for most. The popular cookery publications discussed above devote little space to Fair Trade product marketing, much of which is confined to supermarket-produced adverzines promoting the Fair Trade products they stock, and international celebrity chefs have yet to focus attention on this issue. In Australia, discussion of contemporary slavery in the press is sparse, having surfaced in 2000-2001, prompted by UNICEF campaigns against child labour, and in 2007 and 2008 with the visit of a series of high profile anti-slavery campaigners (including Bales) to the region. The public awareness of food produced by forced labour and the troubling issue of human enslavement in general is still far below the level that climate change and ecological issues have achieved thus far in driving foodway evolution. This may change, however, if a ‘Slow’-inflected connection can be made between Western lifestyles and the plight of peoples hidden from our daily existence, but contributing daily to them. Concluding Remarks At this time of accelerating techno-cultural evolution, due in part to the pressures of climate change, it is the creative potential that human conscious awareness brings to bear on these challenges that is most valuable. Today, as in the caves at Lascaux, humanity is evolving new images and narratives to provide rational solutions to emergent challenges. As an example of this, new foodways and ways of thinking about them are beginning to evolve in response to the perceived problems of climate change. The current conscious transformation of food habits by some in the West might be, therefore, in James Lovelock’s terms, a moment of “revolutionary punctuation” (178), whereby rapid cultural adaption is being induced by the growing public awareness of impending crisis. It remains to be seen whether other urgent human problems can be similarly and creatively embraced, and whether this trend can spread to offer global solutions to them. References An Inconvenient Truth. Dir. Davis Guggenheim. Lawrence Bender Productions, 2006. Bales, Kevin. Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004 (first published 1999). Bales, Kevin, and Ron Soodalter. The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009. Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. Chalke, Steve. “Unfinished Business: The Sinister Story behind Chocolate.” The Age 18 Sep. 2007: 11. Cunningham, Stuart, and Graeme Turner. The Media and Communications in Australia Today. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2002. Davey, Gwenda Beed. “Foodways.” The Oxford Companion to Australian Folklore. Ed. Gwenda Beed Davey, and Graham Seal. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1993. 182–85. Doherty, Bob, and John Meehan. “Competing on Social Resources: The Case of the Day Chocolate Company in the UK Confectionery Sector.” Journal of Strategic Marketing 14.4 (2006): 299–313. Eshel, Gidon, and Pamela A. Martin. “Diet, Energy, and Global Warming.” Earth Interactions 10, paper 9 (2006): 1–17. Fowl Dinners. Exec. Prod. Nick Curwin and Zoe Collins. Dragonfly Film and Television Productions and Fresh One Productions, 2008. Freeman, Sarah. Mutton and Oysters: The Victorians and Their Food. London: Gollancz, 1989. Gould, S. J., and N. Eldredge. “Punctuated Equilibrium Comes of Age.” Nature 366 (1993): 223–27. (ICFFA) International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture. Manifesto on the Future of Food. Florence, Italy: Agenzia Regionale per lo Sviluppo e l’Innovazione nel Settore Agricolo Forestale and Regione Toscana, 2006. Jamie’s School Dinners. Dir. Guy Gilbert. Fresh One Productions, 2005. Jordan, Jennifer A. “The Heirloom Tomato as Cultural Object: Investigating Taste and Space.” Sociologia Ruralis 47.1 (2007): 20-41. Khan, Urmee. “Jamie Oliver’s School Dinners Improve Exam Results, Report Finds.” Telegraph 1 Feb. 2009. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/4423132/Jamie-Olivers-school-dinners-improve-exam-results-report-finds.html >. Kloppenberg, Jack, Jr, Sharon Lezberg, Kathryn de Master, G. W. Stevenson, and John Henrickson. ‘Tasting Food, Tasting Sustainability: Defining the Attributes of an Alternative Food System with Competent, Ordinary People.” Human Organisation 59.2 (Jul. 2000): 177–86. (LDP) Liverpool Daily Post. “Battery Farm Eggs Banned from Schools and Care Homes.” Liverpool Daily Post 12 Jan. 2008. 24 Aug. 2009 < http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2008/01/12/battery-farm-eggs-banned-from-schools-and-care-homes-64375-20342259 >. Lovelock, James. The Ages of Gaia: A Biography of Our Living Earth. New York: Bantam, 1990 (first published 1988). Mason, Jim, and Peter Singer. The Ethics of What We Eat. 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Background “The sense of taste,” write Nelson and colleagues in a 2002 issue of Nature, “provides animals with valuable information about the nature and quality of food. Mammals can recognize and respond to a diverse repertoire of chemical entities, including sugars, salts, acids and a wide range of toxic substances” (199). The authors go on to argue that several amino acids—the building blocks of proteins—taste delicious to humans and that “having a taste pathway dedicated to their detection probably had significant evolutionary implications”. They imply, but do not specify, that the evolutionary implications are positive. This may be the case with some amino acids, but contemporary tastes, and changes in them, are far from universally beneficial. Indeed, this article argues that modern food production shapes and distorts human taste with significant implications for health and wellbeing. Take the western taste for fried chipped potatoes, for example. According to Schlosser in Fast Food Nation, “In 1960, the typical American ate eighty-one pounds of fresh potatoes and about four pounds of frozen french fries. Today [2002] the typical American eats about forty-nine pounds of fresh potatoes every year—and more than thirty pounds of frozen french fries” (115). Nine-tenths of these chips are consumed in fast food restaurants which use mass-manufactured potato-based frozen products to provide this major “foodservice item” more quickly and cheaply than the equivalent dish prepared from raw ingredients. These choices, informed by human taste buds, have negative evolutionary implications, as does the apparently long-lasting consumer preference for fried goods cooked in trans-fats. “Numerous foods acquire their elastic properties (i.e., snap, mouth-feel, and hardness) from the colloidal fat crystal network comprised primarily of trans- and saturated fats. These hardstock fats contribute, along with numerous other factors, to the global epidemics related to metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular disease,” argues Michael A. Rogers (747). Policy makers and public health organisations continue to compare notes internationally about the best ways in which to persuade manufacturers and fast food purveyors to reduce the use of these trans-fats in their products (L’Abbé et al.), however, most manufacturers resist. Hank Cardello, a former fast food executive, argues that “many products are designed for ‘high hedonic value’, with carefully balanced combinations of salt, sugar and fat that, experience has shown, induce people to eat more” (quoted, Trivedi 41). Fortunately for the manufactured food industry, salt and sugar also help to preserve food, effectively prolonging the shelf life of pre-prepared and packaged goods. Physiological Factors As Glanz et al. discovered when surveying 2,967 adult Americans, “taste is the most important influence on their food choices, followed by cost” (1118). A person’s taste is to some extent an individual response to food stimuli, but the tongue’s taste buds respond to five basic categories of food: salty, sweet, sour, bitter, and umami. ‘Umami’ is a Japanese word indicating “delicious savoury taste” (Coughlan 11) and it is triggered by the amino acid glutamate. Japanese professor Kikunae Ikeda identified glutamate while investigating the taste of a particular seaweed which he believed was neither sweet, sour, bitter, or salty. When Ikeda combined the glutamate taste essence with sodium he formed the food additive sodium glutamate, which was patented in 1908 and subsequently went into commercial production (Japan Patent Office). Although individual, a person’s taste preferences are by no means fixed. There is ample evidence that people’s tastes are being distorted by modern food marketing practices that process foods to make them increasingly appealing to the average palate. In particular, this industrialisation of food promotes the growth of a snack market driven by salty and sugary foods, popularly constructed as posing a threat to health and wellbeing. “[E]xpanding waistlines [are] fuelled by a boom in fast food and a decline in physical activity” writes Stark, who reports upon the 2008 launch of a study into Australia’s future ‘fat bomb’. As Deborah Lupton notes, such reports were a particular feature of the mid 2000s when: intense concern about the ‘obesity epidemic’ intensified and peaked. Time magazine named 2004 ‘The Year of Obesity’. That year the World Health Organization’s Global Strategy on Diet, Physical Activity and Health was released and the [US] Centers for Disease Control predicted that a poor diet and lack of exercise would soon claim more lives than tobacco-related disease in the United States. (4) The American Heart Association recommends eating no more than 1500mg of salt per day (Hamzelou 11) but salt consumption in the USA averages more than twice this quantity, at 3500mg per day (Bernstein and Willett 1178). In the UK, a sustained campaign and public health-driven engagement with food manufacturers by CASH—Consensus Action on Salt and Health—resulted in a reduction of between 30 and 40 percent of added salt in processed foods between 2001 and 2011, with a knock-on 15 percent decline in the UK population’s salt intake overall. This is the largest reduction achieved by any developed nation (Brinsden et al.). “According to the [UK’s] National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), this will have reduced [UK] stroke and heart attack deaths by a minimum of 9,000 per year, with a saving in health care costs of at least £1.5bn a year” (MacGregor and Pombo). Whereas there has been some success over the past decade in reducing the amount of salt consumed, in the Western world the consumption of sugar continues to rise, as a graph cited in the New Scientist indicates (O’Callaghan). Regular warnings that sugar is associated with a range of health threats and delivers empty calories devoid of nutrition have failed to halt the increase in sugar consumption. Further, although some sugar is a natural product, processed foods tend to use a form invented in 1957: high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). “HFCS is a gloopy solution of glucose and fructose” writes O’Callaghan, adding that it is “as sweet as table sugar but has typically been about 30% cheaper”. She cites Serge Ahmed, a French neuroscientist, as arguing that in a world of food sufficiency people do not need to consume more, so they need to be enticed to overeat by making food more pleasurable. Ahmed was part of a team that ran an experiment with cocaine-addicted rats, offering them a mutually exclusive choice between highly-sweetened water and cocaine: Our findings clearly indicate that intense sweetness can surpass cocaine reward, even in drug-sensitized and -addicted individuals. We speculate that the addictive potential of intense sweetness results from an inborn hypersensitivity to sweet tastants. In most mammals, including rats and humans, sweet receptors evolved in ancestral environments poor in sugars and are thus not adapted to high concentrations of sweet tastants. The supranormal stimulation of these receptors by sugar-rich diets, such as those now widely available in modern societies, would generate a supranormal reward signal in the brain, with the potential to override self-control mechanisms and thus lead to addiction. (Lenoir et al.) The Tongue and the Brain One of the implications of this research about the mammalian desire for sugar is that our taste for food is about more than how these foods actually taste in the mouth on our tongues. It is also about the neural response to the food we eat. The taste of French fries thus also includes that “snap, mouth-feel, and hardness” and the “colloidal fat crystal network” (Rogers, “Novel Structuring” 747). While there is no taste receptor for fats, these nutrients have important effects upon the brain. Wang et al. offered rats a highly fatty, but palatable, diet and allowed them to eat freely. 33 percent of the calories in the food were delivered via fat, compared with 21 percent in a normal diet. The animals almost doubled their usual calorific intake, both because the food had a 37 percent increased calorific content and also because the rats ate 47 percent more than was standard (2786). The research team discovered that in as little as three days the rats “had already lost almost all of their ability to respond to leptin” (Martindale 27). Leptin is a hormone that acts on the brain to communicate feelings of fullness, and is thus important in assisting animals to maintain a healthy body weight. The rats had also become insulin resistant. “Severe resistance to the metabolic effects of both leptin and insulin ensued after just 3 days of overfeeding” (Wang et al. 2786). Fast food restaurants typically offer highly palatable, high fat, high sugar, high salt, calorific foods which can deliver 130 percent of a day’s recommended fat intake, and almost a day’s worth of an adult man’s calories, in one meal. The impacts of maintaining such a diet over a comparatively short time-frame have been recorded in documentaries such as Super Size Me (Spurlock). The after effects of what we widely call “junk food” are also evident in rat studies. Neuroscientist Paul Kenny, who like Ahmed was investigating possible similarities between food- and cocaine-addicted rats, allowed his animals unlimited access to both rat ‘junk food’ and healthy food for rats. He then changed their diets. “The rats with unlimited access to junk food essentially went on a hunger strike. ‘It was as if they had become averse to healthy food’, says Kenny. It took two weeks before the animals began eating as much [healthy food] as those in the control group” (quoted, Trivedi 40). Developing a taste for certain food is consequently about much more than how they taste in the mouth; it constitutes an individual’s response to a mixture of taste, hormonal reactions and physiological changes. Choosing Health Glanz et al. conclude their study by commenting that “campaigns attempting to change people’s perception of the importance of nutrition will be interpreted in terms of existing values and beliefs. A more promising strategy might be to stress the good taste of healthful foods” (1126). Interestingly, this is the strategy already adopted by some health-focused cookbooks. I have 66 cookery books in my kitchen. None of ten books sampled from the five spaces in which these books are kept had ‘taste’ as an index entry, but three books had ‘taste’ in their titles: The Higher Taste, Taste of Life, and The Taste of Health. All three books seek to promote healthy eating, and they all date from the mid-1980s. It might be that taste is not mentioned in cookbook indexes because it is a sine qua non: a focus upon taste is so necessary and fundamental to a cookbook that it goes without saying. Yet, as the physiological evidence makes clear, what we find palatable is highly mutable, varying between people, and capable of changing significantly in comparatively short periods of time. The good news from the research studies is that the changes wrought by high salt, high sugar, high fat diets need not be permanent. Luciano Rossetti, one of the authors on Wang et al’s paper, told Martindale that the physiological changes are reversible, but added a note of caution: “the fatter a person becomes the more resistant they will be to the effects of leptin and the harder it is to reverse those effects” (27). Morgan Spurlock’s experience also indicates this. In his case it took the actor/director 14 months to lose the 11.1 kg (13 percent of his body mass) that he gained in the 30 days of his fast-food-only experiment. Trivedi was more fortunate, stating that, “After two weeks of going cold turkey, I can report I have successfully kicked my ice cream habit” (41). A reader’s letter in response to Trivedi’s article echoes this observation. She writes that “the best way to stop the craving was to switch to a diet of vegetables, seeds, nuts and fruits with a small amount of fish”, adding that “cravings stopped in just a week or two, and the diet was so effective that I no longer crave junk food even when it is in front of me” (Mackeown). Popular culture indicates a range of alternative ways to resist food manufacturers. In the West, there is a growing emphasis on organic farming methods and produce (Guthman), on sl called Urban Agriculture in the inner cities (Mason and Knowd), on farmers’ markets, where consumers can meet the producers of the food they eat (Guthrie et al.), and on the work of advocates of ‘real’ food, such as Jamie Oliver (Warrin). Food and wine festivals promote gourmet tourism along with an emphasis upon the quality of the food consumed, and consumption as a peak experience (Hall and Sharples), while environmental perspectives prompt awareness of ‘food miles’ (Weber and Matthews), fair trade (Getz and Shreck) and of land degradation, animal suffering, and the inequitable use of resources in the creation of the everyday Western diet (Dare, Costello and Green). The burgeoning of these different approaches has helped to stimulate a commensurate growth in relevant disciplinary fields such as Food Studies (Wessell and Brien). One thing that all these new ways of looking at food and taste have in common is that they are options for people who feel they have the right to choose what and when to eat; and to consume the tastes they prefer. This is not true of all groups of people in all countries. Hiding behind the public health campaigns that encourage people to exercise and eat fresh fruit and vegetables are the hidden “social determinants of health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, including the health system” (WHO 45). As the definitions explain, it is the “social determinants of health [that] are mostly responsible for health iniquities” with evidence from all countries around the world demonstrating that “in general, the lower an individual’s socioeconomic position, the worse his or her health” (WHO 45). For the comparatively disadvantaged, it may not be the taste of fast food that attracts them but the combination of price and convenience. If there is no ready access to cooking facilities, or safe food storage, or if a caregiver is simply too time-poor to plan and prepare meals for a family, junk food becomes a sensible choice and its palatability an added bonus. For those with the education, desire, and opportunity to break free of the taste for salty and sugary fats, however, there are a range of strategies to achieve this. There is a persuasive array of evidence that embracing a plant-based diet confers a multitude of health benefits for the individual, for the planet and for the animals whose lives and welfare would otherwise be sacrificed to feed us (Green, Costello and Dare). Such a choice does involve losing the taste for foods which make up the lion’s share of the Western diet, but any sense of deprivation only lasts for a short time. The fact is that our sense of taste responds to the stimuli offered. It may be that, notwithstanding the desires of Jamie Oliver and the like, a particular child never will never get to like broccoli, but it is also the case that broccoli tastes differently to me, seven years after becoming a vegan, than it ever did in the years in which I was omnivorous. When people tell me that they would love to adopt a plant-based diet but could not possibly give up cheese, it is difficult to reassure them that the pleasure they get now from that specific cocktail of salty fats will be more than compensated for by the sheer exhilaration of eating crisp, fresh fruits and vegetables in the future. Conclusion For decades, the mass market food industry has tweaked their products to make them hyper-palatable and difficult to resist. They do this through marketing experiments and consumer behaviour research, schooling taste buds and brains to anticipate and relish specific cocktails of sweet fats (cakes, biscuits, chocolate, ice cream) and salty fats (chips, hamburgers, cheese, salted nuts). They add ingredients to make these products stimulate taste buds more effectively, while also producing cheaper items with longer life on the shelves, reducing spoilage and the complexity of storage for retailers. Consumers are trained to like the tastes of these foods. Bitter, sour, and umami receptors are comparatively under-stimulated, with sweet, salty, and fat-based tastes favoured in their place. Western societies pay the price for this learned preference in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and obesity. Public health advocate Bruce Neal and colleagues, working to reduce added salt in processed foods, note that the food and manufacturing industries can now provide most of the calories that the world needs to survive. “The challenge now”, they argue, “is to have these same industries provide foods that support long and healthy adult lives. And in this regard there remains a very considerable way to go”. If the public were to believe that their sense of taste is mutable and has been distorted for corporate and industrial gain, and if they were to demand greater access to natural foods in their unprocessed state, then that journey towards a healthier future might be far less protracted than these and many other researchers seem to believe. References Bernstein, Adam, and Walter Willett. “Trends in 24-Hr Sodium Excretion in the United States, 1957–2003: A Systematic Review.” American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 92 (2010): 1172–1180. Bhaktivedanta Book Trust. 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This article will look at the use of personal photographs that attempt to convey a sense of social activism as a reaction against global terrorism. Moreover, I argue that the photographs uploaded to the site “We’re Not Afraid”, which began after the London bombings in 2005, presents a forum to promote the pleasures of western cultural values as a defence against the anxiety of terror. What is compelling are the ways in which the Website promotes, seemingly, everyday modalities through what may be deemed as the domestic snapshot. Nevertheless, the aura from the context of these images operates to arouse the collective memory of terrorism and violence. It promotes photography’s spectacular power. To begin it is worthwhile considering the ways in which the spectacle of terrorism is mediated. For example, the bombs activated on the London Underground and at Tavistock Square on the 7th of July 2005 marked the day that London became a victim of ‘global’ terrorism, re-instilling the fear projected by the media to be alarmed and to be suspicious. In the shadow of the terrorist events of September 11, as well as the Madrid Bombings in 2004, the incidents once again drew attention to the point that in the Western world ‘we’ again can be under attack. Furthermore, the news media plays a vital role in mediating the reality and the spectacle of terrorist attacks in the display of visual ‘proof’. After the London bombings of 7 July 2005, the BBC Website encouraged photo submissions of the incidents, under the heading “London Explosions: Your Photos”, thus promoting citizen journalism. Within six hours the BBC site received more that 1000 photographs. According to Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC’s World Service and Global News division, “people were participating in our coverage in way we had never seen before” (13). Other news Websites, such as Reuters and MSNBC also set up a similar call and display of the incidents. The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the trauma of terrorism in which they became active participants in the reportage. Leading British newspapers further evoked the sensational terror of the incidents through the captioning of horrific images of destruction. It contextualised them within the realm of fascination and fear with headlines such as “London’s Day of Terror” from the Guardian, “Terror Comes to London” from the Independent and “Al-Qa’eda Brings Terror to the Heart of London” from the Daily Telegraph (“What the Papers Say”). Roland Barthes notes that “even from the perspective of a purely immanent analysis, the structure of the photograph is not an isolated structure; it is in communication with at least one other structure, namely the text – title, caption or article – accompanying every press photograph” (16). He suggested that, with the rise to prominence of ‘the press photograph’ as a mode of visual communication, the traditional relationship between image and text was inverted: “it is not the image which comes to elucidate or ‘realize’ the text, but the latter which comes to sublimate, patheticize or rationalize the image” (25). Frederic Jameson raises a very important point in regards to the role the media plays in terror. He suggests that the Western media is not only affected by a permanent condition of amnesia, but that this has become its primary ‘informational function’ (20). Hence, terror images are constantly repeated for their affect. “When combined with the media, terrorism’s reality-making power is astounding: its capacity to blend the media’s sensational stories, old mythical stereotypes, and a burning sense of moral wrath” (Zulaika and Douglass ix). Susan Sontag, in her 2003 book Regarding the Pain of Others, also discusses the assault of images (116). She argues that “the iconography of suffering has a long pedigree. The sufferings most often deemed worthy of representation are those understood to be the product of wrath, divine or human” (40). Furthermore, globalisation has profoundly changed the rhetoric of terrorism in which the uses of photographs for political means are ubiquitous. Sontag argues that “it seems as if there is a greater quantity of such news than before” (116). Nevertheless, she stresses, “it seems normal to turn away from images that simply make us feel bad” (116). Rather, than the focus on images of despair, the “We’re Not Afraid” Website provides a reaction against visual assaults. The images suggest a turning away from the iconography of terror and suffering to a focus on everyday western middle-class modalities. The images on the site consist of domestic ritual photographic practices, such as family snapshots. The images were disseminated following what has been referred to as the ‘incidents’ by the British press of the attacks on 7 July on the London transport system. Significantly, rather than being described as an event, such as the September 11 terrorist assaults were, the term ‘incidents’ suggests that everyday modalities, the everyday ways of being, may not be affected despite the terror of the attacks. It is, perhaps, a very British approach to the idea of ‘moving on’ despite adversity, which the Website advocates. The Website invites the general public to upload personal photographs captioned with the phrase “We’re not afraid” to “show that terrorists would not change the way people lived their lives” (Clarke).The Website began on 7 July 2005 and during the first week the site received, at times, up to 15 images a minute from across the world (Nikkah). Notably, within days of the Website’s launch it received over 3500 images and 11 million hits (Clarke).The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the incidents. These images seem to support Susan Sontag’s argument from On Photography, in which she argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The images present a social activism for the predominantly white middle-class online participants and, as such, is subversive in its move away from the contextualised sensational images of violence that abound in the mainstream press. According to the site’s creator, London Web designer, Alfie Dennen “the idea for this site came from a picture of one of the bombed trains sent from a mobile phone to Dennen’s own weblog. Someone else added the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’ alongside the image” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). Hence, in Dennen’s Weblog the terror and trauma of the train images of the London underground, that were circulated in the main stream press, have been recontextualised by the caption to present defiance and survival. The images uploaded onto the Website range from personal snapshots to manipulated photographs which all bear the declaration: ‘We are not afraid’. Currently, there are 770 galleries with 24 images per gallery amounting to around 18500 images that have been sent to the site. The photographs provide a crack in the projected reality of terrorism and the iconography of suffering as espoused by the mainstream media. The Website claims: We’re not afraid is an outlet for the global community to speak out against the acts of terror that have struck London, Madrid, New York, Baghdad, Basra, Tikrit, Gaza, Tel-Aviv, Afghanistan, Bali, and against the atrocities occurring in cities around the world each and every day. It is a worldwide action for people not willing to be cowed by terrorism and fear mongering. It suggests that: The historical response to these types of attacks has been a show of deadly force; we believe that there is a better way. We refuse to respond to aggression and hatred in kind. Instead, we who are not afraid will continue to live our lives the best way we know how. We will work, we will play, we will laugh, we will live. We will not waste one moment, nor sacrifice one bit of our freedom, because of fear. We are not afraid. (“we’re not afraid.com: Citizens for a secure world, united against terror.”) The images evoke the social memory of our era of global terrorism. Arguably, the events since September 11 have placed the individual in a protection mode. The photographs represent, as Sontag espouses, a tool against the anxiety of our time. This is a turn away from the visual iconography of despair. As such, rather than images of suffering they are images of survival, or life carrying on as usual. Or, more precisely, the images represent depictions of everyday western middle-class existence. The images range from family snaps, touristic photographs, pictures of the London underground and some manipulated images all containing the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’. Dennen “said the site had become a symbol for people to show solidarity with London and say they will not be cowed by the bombings” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). The photographs also serve as a form of protection of western middle-class values and lifestyle that may be threatened by terrorist acts. Of consideration is that “personal photographs not only bind us to our own pasts – they bind us to the pasts of the social groups to which we belong” (Gye 280). The images on the site may be described as a “revocation of social power through visibility” and as such photography is considered a “performance of power” (Frosh 46). Barthes asserts that “formerly, the image illustrated the text (made it clearer); today, the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination” (25). The images loaded onto the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ assumes notions of resilience and defiance which can be closely linked to Anglo-American cultural memory and imagination. Significantly, efforts to influence ‘heart and minds’ through support of touring exhibitions were common in the earlier days of the Cold War. Sontag argues that “photographic collections can be used to substitute a world” (162). The images exalted a universal humanism, similarly to the images on the “We’re Not Afraid” site. Many exhibits were supported throughout the 1950s, often under the auspices of the USIA (United States Information Agency). A famous example is the photography exhibit ‘The Family of Man’ which travelled to 28 countries between 1955-59 and was seen by 9 million people (Kennedy 316). It contained 503 images, 273 photographers from 68 nations “it posited humanity as a universal ideal and human empathy as a compensatory response to the threat of nuclear annihilation” (Kennedy 322). Significantly, Liam Kennedy asserts that, the Cold War rhetoric surrounding the exhibition blurred the boundaries between art, information and propaganda. The exhibition has been critiqued ideologically as an imperialist project, most notably by Allan Sekula in which he states “the worldliness of photography is the outcome, not of any immanent universality of meaning, but of a project of global domination” (96). In more recent times an exhibition, backed by the US State Department titled ‘After September 11: Images from Ground Zero’, by photojournalist/art photographer Joel Meyorowitz travelled to more than 60 countries and assisted in shaping and maintaining a public memory of the attacks of the World Trade Centre and its aftermath (Kennedy 315). Similar, to ‘The Family of Man’, it adds an epic quality to the images. As Kennedy points out that: To be sure this latter exhibit has been more overtly designed as propaganda, yet it also carries the cachet of ‘culture’ (most obviously, via the signature of a renowned photographer) and is intended to transmit a universal message that transcends the politics of difference. (Kennedy 323) The Website “We’re Not Afraid’ maintains the public memory of terrorism, without the horror of suffering. With a ‘universal message’ similar to the aforementioned exhibitions, it attempts to transcends the politics of difference by addressing the ‘we’ as the ‘everyday’ citizen. It serves as a gallery space and similarly evokes western romantic universal ideals conveyed in the exhibition ‘The Family of Man’, whilst its aesthetic forms avoid the stylististically captured scenes of ‘After September 11’. As stated earlier, the site had over 11 million hits in the first few weeks; as such the sheer number of viewers exceeds that of any formal photographic exhibition. Moreover, unlike these highly constructed art exhibitions from leading professional photographers, the Website significantly presents a democratic form of participation in which the ‘personal is political’. It is the citizen journalist. It is the ‘everyday’ person, as evidenced in the predominant snapshot aesthetics and the ordinariness in the images that are employed. Kris Cohen, in his analysis of photoblogging suggests that this aesthetic emphasises the importance in “photoblogging of not thinking too much, of the role that instinct plays in the making of photographs and the photoblog” (890). As discussed, previously, the overwhelming response and contributions to the Website within days of its launch seems to suggest this. The submission of photographs suggests a visceral response to the incidents from the ‘people’ in the celebration of the ‘everyday’ and the mundane. It also should be noted that “there are now well over a million documented blogs and photoblogs in the world”, with most appearing since 2003 (Cohen 886). As Cohen suggests “their newfound popularity has provoked a gentle storm of press, along with a significant number of utopic scenarios in which blogs feature as the next emancipatory mass media product”(886). The world-wide press coverage for the “We’re Not Afraid’ site is one key example that promotes this “utopian vision of transfigured citizens and in Benedict Anderson’s well used term an ‘imagined community” (Goggin xx). Nevertheless, the defiant captioning of the images also returns us historically to the social memory of the London Blitz 1940-41 in which the theme of a transfigured community was employed and in which the London underground and shelters became a signifier for the momentum of “We’re Not Afraid’. Barthes explained in Mythologies about the “the sight of the ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined by history” (11). What I want to argue is that the mythology surrounding the London bombings articulated in the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ is determined by 20th Century history of the media and the cultural imaginary surrounding predominantly British values*.** *The British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, asserted that “qualities of creativity built on tolerance, openness and adaptability, work and self improvement, strong communities and families and fair play, rights and responsibilities and an outward looking approach to the world that all flow from our unique island geography and history.” (“Blair Defines British Values”). These values are suggested in the types of photographs uploaded onto the activist Website, as such notions of the British Empire are evoked. Moreover, in his address following the incident, “Blair harkened back to the ‘Blitz spirit’ that saw Londoners through the dark days of Nazi bombing during World War II — and, by association, to Winston Churchill, the wartime leader whose determined, moving speeches helped steel the national resolve” (“Blair Delivers”). In his Churchillian cadence he paid “tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the people of London who have responded in a way typical of them”. He said Britain would show “by our spirit and dignity” that “our values will long outlast” the terrorists. He further declared that “the purpose of terrorism is just that. It is to terrorize people and we will not be terrorized” (“Blair Delivers”). The mythology of the Blitz and “the interpretive context at the time (and for some years thereafter) can be summarized by the phrase ‘the People’s War’—a populist patriotism that combined criticism of the past with expectations of social change and inclusive messages of shared heritage and values” (Field 31). The image conveyed is of a renewed sense of community. The language of triumph against adversity and the endurance of ordinary citizens are also evoked in the popular press of the London incidents. The Times announced: Revulsion and resolve: Despite the shock, horror and outrage, the calm shown in London was exemplary. Ordinary life may be inconvenienced by the spectre of terror, yet terrorism will not force free societies to abandon their fundamental features. An attack was inevitable. The casualties were dreadful. The terrorists have only strengthened the resolve of Britain and its people. (“What the Papers Say”) Similarly the Daily Express headline was “We Britons Will Never Be Defeated” (“What the Papers Say”). The declaration of “We’re not afraid” alongside images on the Website follows on from this trajectory. The BBC reported that the Website “‘We’re not afraid’ gives Londoners a voice” (“Not Afraid Website Overwhelmed”). The BBC has also made a documentary concerning the mission and the somewhat utopian principles presented. Similarly discussion of the site has been evoked in other Weblogs that overwhelmingly praise it and very rarely question its role. One example is from a discussion of “We’re Not Afraid” on another activist site titled “World Changing: Change Your Thinking”. The contributor states: Well, I live in the UK and I am afraid. I’m also scared that sites like We’re Not Afraid encourage an unhealthy solidarity of superiority, nationalism and xenophobia – perpetuating a “we’re good” and “they’re evil” mentality that avoids the big picture questions of how we got here. Posted by: John Norris at July 8, 2005 03:45 AM Notably, this statement also reiterates the previous argument on cultural diplomacy presented by theorists in regards to the exhibitions of ‘The Family of Man’ and ‘After September 11’ in which the images are viewed as propaganda, promoting western cultural values. This is also supported by the mood of commentary in the British press since the London bombings, in which it is argued that “Britain and the British way of life are under threat, the implication being that the threat is so serious that it may ultimately destroy the nation and its values” (King). The significance of the Website is that it represents a somewhat democratic medium in its call for engagement and self-expression. Furthermore, the emancipatory photography of self and space, presented in the “We’re Not Afraid” site, echoes Blair’s declaration of “we will not be terrorized”. However, it follows similar politically conservative themes that were evoked in the Blitz, such as community, family and social stability, with tacit reference to social fragmentation and multi-ethnicity (Field 41-42). In general, as befitted the theme of “a People’s War,” the Blitz imagery was positive and sympathetic in the way it promoted the endurance of the ordinary citizen. Geoffrey Field suggests “it offered an implicit rejoinder to the earlier furor—focusing especially on brave, caring mothers who made efforts to retain some semblance of family under the most difficult circumstances and fathers who turned up for work no matter how heavy the bombing had been the night before” (24). Images on the Website consist of snapshots of babies, families, pets, sporting groups, people on holiday and at celebrations. It represents a, somewhat, global perspective of middle-class values. The snapshot aesthetic presents, what Liz Kotz refers to as, the “aesthetics of intimacy”. It is a certain kind of photographic work which is quasi-documentary and consists of “colour images of individuals, families, or groupings, presented in an apparently intimate, unposed manner, shot in an off-kilter, snapshot style, often a bit grainy, unfocused, off-colour” (204). These are the types of images that provide the visual gratification of solidarity amongst its contributors and viewers, as it seemingly appears more ‘real’. Yet, Kotz asserts that these type of photographs also involve a structure of power relations “that cannot be easily evaded by the spontaneous performance before the lens” (210). For example, Sarah Boxer importantly points out that “We’re Not Afraid”, set up to show solidarity with London, seems to be turning into a place where the haves of the world can show that they’re not afraid of the have-nots” (1). She argues that “there’s a brutish flaunting of wealth and leisure” (1). The iconography in the images of “We’re not Afraid” certainly promotes a ‘memorialisation’ of the middle-class sphere. The site draws attention to the values of the global neoliberal order in which capital accumulation is paramount. It, nevertheless, also attempts to challenge “the true victory of terrorism”, which Jean Baudrillard circumspectly remarks is in “the regression of the value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc… that the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its power over the rest of the world”. Self-confidence is conveyed in the images. Moreover, with the subjects welcoming gaze to the camera there may be a sense of narcissism in publicising what could be considered mundane. However, visibility is power. For example, one of the contributors, Maryland USA resident Darcy Nair, said “she felt a sense of helplessness in the days after 9/11. Posting on the We’re Not Afraid may be a small act, but it does give people like her a sense that they’re doing something” (cited in Weir). Nair states that: It seems that it is the only good answer from someone like me who’s not in the government or military…There are so many other people who are joining in. When bunches of individuals get together – it does make me feel hopeful – there are so many other people who feel the same way. (cited in Weir) Participation in the Website conveys a power which consists of defiantly celebrating western middle-class aesthetics in the form of personal photography. As such, the personal becomes political and the private becomes public. The site offers an opportunity for a shared experience and a sense of community that perhaps is needed in the era of global terrorism. It could be seen as a celebration of survival (Weir). The Website seems inspirational with its defiant message. Moreover, it also has postings from various parts of the world that convey a message of triumph in the ‘everyday’. The site also presents the ubiquitous use of photography in a western cultural tradition in which idealised constructions are manifested in ‘Kodak’ moments and in which the domestic space and leisure times are immortalised and become, significantly, the arena of activism. As previously discussed Sontag argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The Website offers the sense of a global connection. It promotes itself as “citizens for a secure world, united against terror”. It attempts to provide a universal solidarity, which appears uplifting. It is a defence against anxiety in which, in the act of using personal photographs, it becomes part of the collective memory and assists in easing the frustration of not being able to do anything. As Sontag argues “often something looks, or is felt to look ‘better’ in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things” (81). Rather than focus on the tragic victim of traditional photojournalism, in which the camera is directed towards the other, the site promotes the sharing and triumph of personal moments. In the spotlight are ‘everyday’ modalities from ‘everyday people’ attempting to confront the rhetoric of terrorism. In their welcoming gaze to the camera the photographic subjects challenge the notion of the sensational image, the spectacle that is on show is that of middle-class modalities and a performance of collective power. Note Themes from this article have been presented at the 2005 Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference in Sydney, Australia and at the 2006 Association for Cultural Studies Crossroads Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. References Barthes, Roland. “The Photographic Message.” Image-Music-Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Noonday Press, 1977 [1961]. 15-31. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Vintage, 1993 [1972]. Baudrillard, Jean. “The Spirit of Terrorism.” Trans. Rachel Bloul. La Monde 2 (2001). < http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-the-spirit-of-terrorism.html >. “Blair Defines British Values.” BBC News 28 Mar. 2000. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/693591.stm >. “Blair Delivers a Classically British Rallying Cry.” Associated Press 7 July 2005. < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8502984/ >. Boxter, Sarah. “On the Web, Fearlessness Meets Frivolousness.” The York Times 12 July 2005. < http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/arts/design/12boxe.html?ex= 1278820800&en=e3b207245991aea8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss >. Clarke, R. “Web Site Shows Defiance to Bombers: Thousands Send Images to Say ‘We Are Not Afraid.’” CNN International 12 July 2005. < http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/11/london.website/ >. “CJ Bombings in London.” MSNBC TV Citizen Journalist. < http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8499792/ >. Cohen, Kris R. “What Does the Photoblog Want?” Media, Culture & Society 27.6 (2005): 883-901. Dennen, Alfie. “We’renotafraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United Against Terror.” < http://www.werenotafraid.com/ >. Field, Geoffrey. “Nights Underground in Darkest London: The Blitz, 1940–1941.” International Labor and Working-Class History 62 (2002): 11-49. Frosh, Paul. “The Public Eye and the Citizen-Voyeur: Photography as a Performance of Power.” Social Semiotics 11.1 (2001): 43-59. Gye, Lisa. “Picture This: The Impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 22.2 (2007): 279-288. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern. New York: Verso, 1998. 1-20. Kennedy, Liam. “Remembering September 11: Photography as Cultural Diplomacy.” International Affairs 79.2 (2003): 315-326. King, Anthony. “What Does It Mean to Be British?” Telegraph 27 May 2005. < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/27/ nbrit27.xml >. Kotz, Liz. “The Aesthetics of Intimacy.” In D. Bright (ed.), The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire. London: Routledge, 1998. 204-215. “London Explosions: Your Photos.” BBC News 8 July 2005 < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4660563.stm >. Nikkhah, Roya. “We’restillnotafraid.com.” Telegraph co.uk 23 July 2005. < http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/24/ nseven224.xml >. “‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed.” BBC News 12 July 2005. < http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/4674425.stm >. Norris, John. “We’re Not Afraid”. World Changing: Change Your Thinking. < http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003069.html >. “Reuters: You Witness News.” < http://www.reuters.com/youwitness >. Sambrook, Richard. “Citizen Journalism and the BBC.” Nieman Reports (Winter 2005): 13-16. Sekula, Allan. “The Traffic in Photographs.” In Photography against the Grain: Essays and Photoworks 1973-1983. Halifax Nova Scotia: Nova Scotia College Press, 1984. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2003. Sontag. Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1977. Weir, William. “The Global Community Support and Sends a Defiant Message to Terrorists.” Hartford Courant 14 July 2005. < http://www.uchc.edu/ocomm/newsarchive/news05/jul05/notafraid.html >. We’renot afraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United against Terror. < http://www.werenotafraid.com >. “What the Papers Say.” Media Guardian 8 July 2005. < http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jul/08/pressandpublishing.terrorism1 >. Zulaika, Joseba, and William A. Douglass. Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism. New York: Routledge, 1996.

This article will look at the use of personal photographs that attempt to convey a sense of social activism as a reaction against global terrorism. Moreover, I argue that the photographs uploaded to the site “We’re Not Afraid”, which began after the London bombings in 2005, presents a forum to promote the pleasures of western cultural values as a defence against the anxiety of terror. What is compelling are the ways in which the Website promotes, seemingly, everyday modalities through what may be deemed as the domestic snapshot. Nevertheless, the aura from the context of these images operates to arouse the collective memory of terrorism and violence. It promotes photography’s spectacular power. To begin it is worthwhile considering the ways in which the spectacle of terrorism is mediated. For example, the bombs activated on the London Underground and at Tavistock Square on the 7th of July 2005 marked the day that London became a victim of ‘global’ terrorism, re-instilling the fear projected by the media to be alarmed and to be suspicious. In the shadow of the terrorist events of September 11, as well as the Madrid Bombings in 2004, the incidents once again drew attention to the point that in the Western world ‘we’ again can be under attack. Furthermore, the news media plays a vital role in mediating the reality and the spectacle of terrorist attacks in the display of visual ‘proof’. After the London bombings of 7 July 2005, the BBC Website encouraged photo submissions of the incidents, under the heading “London Explosions: Your Photos”, thus promoting citizen journalism. Within six hours the BBC site received more that 1000 photographs. According to Richard Sambrook, director of the BBC’s World Service and Global News division, “people were participating in our coverage in way we had never seen before” (13). Other news Websites, such as Reuters and MSNBC also set up a similar call and display of the incidents. The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the trauma of terrorism in which they became active participants in the reportage. Leading British newspapers further evoked the sensational terror of the incidents through the captioning of horrific images of destruction. It contextualised them within the realm of fascination and fear with headlines such as “London’s Day of Terror” from the Guardian, “Terror Comes to London” from the Independent and “Al-Qa’eda Brings Terror to the Heart of London” from the Daily Telegraph (“What the Papers Say”). Roland Barthes notes that “even from the perspective of a purely immanent analysis, the structure of the photograph is not an isolated structure; it is in communication with at least one other structure, namely the text – title, caption or article – accompanying every press photograph” (16). He suggested that, with the rise to prominence of ‘the press photograph’ as a mode of visual communication, the traditional relationship between image and text was inverted: “it is not the image which comes to elucidate or ‘realize’ the text, but the latter which comes to sublimate, patheticize or rationalize the image” (25). Frederic Jameson raises a very important point in regards to the role the media plays in terror. He suggests that the Western media is not only affected by a permanent condition of amnesia, but that this has become its primary ‘informational function’ (20). Hence, terror images are constantly repeated for their affect. “When combined with the media, terrorism’s reality-making power is astounding: its capacity to blend the media’s sensational stories, old mythical stereotypes, and a burning sense of moral wrath” (Zulaika and Douglass ix). Susan Sontag, in her 2003 book Regarding the Pain of Others, also discusses the assault of images (116). She argues that “the iconography of suffering has a long pedigree. The sufferings most often deemed worthy of representation are those understood to be the product of wrath, divine or human” (40). Furthermore, globalisation has profoundly changed the rhetoric of terrorism in which the uses of photographs for political means are ubiquitous. Sontag argues that “it seems as if there is a greater quantity of such news than before” (116). Nevertheless, she stresses, “it seems normal to turn away from images that simply make us feel bad” (116). Rather, than the focus on images of despair, the “We’re Not Afraid” Website provides a reaction against visual assaults. The images suggest a turning away from the iconography of terror and suffering to a focus on everyday western middle-class modalities. The images on the site consist of domestic ritual photographic practices, such as family snapshots. The images were disseminated following what has been referred to as the ‘incidents’ by the British press of the attacks on 7 July on the London transport system. Significantly, rather than being described as an event, such as the September 11 terrorist assaults were, the term ‘incidents’ suggests that everyday modalities, the everyday ways of being, may not be affected despite the terror of the attacks. It is, perhaps, a very British approach to the idea of ‘moving on’ despite adversity, which the Website advocates. The Website invites the general public to upload personal photographs captioned with the phrase “We’re not afraid” to “show that terrorists would not change the way people lived their lives” (Clarke).The Website began on 7 July 2005 and during the first week the site received, at times, up to 15 images a minute from across the world (Nikkah). Notably, within days of the Website’s launch it received over 3500 images and 11 million hits (Clarke).The images taken by everyday people and survivors‚ suggest a visceral response to the incidents. These images seem to support Susan Sontag’s argument from On Photography, in which she argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The images present a social activism for the predominantly white middle-class online participants and, as such, is subversive in its move away from the contextualised sensational images of violence that abound in the mainstream press. According to the site’s creator, London Web designer, Alfie Dennen “the idea for this site came from a picture of one of the bombed trains sent from a mobile phone to Dennen’s own weblog. Someone else added the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’ alongside the image” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). Hence, in Dennen’s Weblog the terror and trauma of the train images of the London underground, that were circulated in the main stream press, have been recontextualised by the caption to present defiance and survival. The images uploaded onto the Website range from personal snapshots to manipulated photographs which all bear the declaration: ‘We are not afraid’. Currently, there are 770 galleries with 24 images per gallery amounting to around 18500 images that have been sent to the site. The photographs provide a crack in the projected reality of terrorism and the iconography of suffering as espoused by the mainstream media. The Website claims: We’re not afraid is an outlet for the global community to speak out against the acts of terror that have struck London, Madrid, New York, Baghdad, Basra, Tikrit, Gaza, Tel-Aviv, Afghanistan, Bali, and against the atrocities occurring in cities around the world each and every day. It is a worldwide action for people not willing to be cowed by terrorism and fear mongering. It suggests that: The historical response to these types of attacks has been a show of deadly force; we believe that there is a better way. We refuse to respond to aggression and hatred in kind. Instead, we who are not afraid will continue to live our lives the best way we know how. We will work, we will play, we will laugh, we will live. We will not waste one moment, nor sacrifice one bit of our freedom, because of fear. We are not afraid. (“we’re not afraid.com: Citizens for a secure world, united against terror.”) The images evoke the social memory of our era of global terrorism. Arguably, the events since September 11 have placed the individual in a protection mode. The photographs represent, as Sontag espouses, a tool against the anxiety of our time. This is a turn away from the visual iconography of despair. As such, rather than images of suffering they are images of survival, or life carrying on as usual. Or, more precisely, the images represent depictions of everyday western middle-class existence. The images range from family snaps, touristic photographs, pictures of the London underground and some manipulated images all containing the words ‘We’re Not Afraid’. Dennen “said the site had become a symbol for people to show solidarity with London and say they will not be cowed by the bombings” (“‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed”). The photographs also serve as a form of protection of western middle-class values and lifestyle that may be threatened by terrorist acts. Of consideration is that “personal photographs not only bind us to our own pasts – they bind us to the pasts of the social groups to which we belong” (Gye 280). The images on the site may be described as a “revocation of social power through visibility” and as such photography is considered a “performance of power” (Frosh 46). Barthes asserts that “formerly, the image illustrated the text (made it clearer); today, the text loads the image, burdening it with a culture, a moral, an imagination” (25). The images loaded onto the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ assumes notions of resilience and defiance which can be closely linked to Anglo-American cultural memory and imagination. Significantly, efforts to influence ‘heart and minds’ through support of touring exhibitions were common in the earlier days of the Cold War. Sontag argues that “photographic collections can be used to substitute a world” (162). The images exalted a universal humanism, similarly to the images on the “We’re Not Afraid” site. Many exhibits were supported throughout the 1950s, often under the auspices of the USIA (United States Information Agency). A famous example is the photography exhibit ‘The Family of Man’ which travelled to 28 countries between 1955-59 and was seen by 9 million people (Kennedy 316). It contained 503 images, 273 photographers from 68 nations “it posited humanity as a universal ideal and human empathy as a compensatory response to the threat of nuclear annihilation” (Kennedy 322). Significantly, Liam Kennedy asserts that, the Cold War rhetoric surrounding the exhibition blurred the boundaries between art, information and propaganda. The exhibition has been critiqued ideologically as an imperialist project, most notably by Allan Sekula in which he states “the worldliness of photography is the outcome, not of any immanent universality of meaning, but of a project of global domination” (96). In more recent times an exhibition, backed by the US State Department titled ‘After September 11: Images from Ground Zero’, by photojournalist/art photographer Joel Meyorowitz travelled to more than 60 countries and assisted in shaping and maintaining a public memory of the attacks of the World Trade Centre and its aftermath (Kennedy 315). Similar, to ‘The Family of Man’, it adds an epic quality to the images. As Kennedy points out that: To be sure this latter exhibit has been more overtly designed as propaganda, yet it also carries the cachet of ‘culture’ (most obviously, via the signature of a renowned photographer) and is intended to transmit a universal message that transcends the politics of difference. (Kennedy 323) The Website “We’re Not Afraid’ maintains the public memory of terrorism, without the horror of suffering. With a ‘universal message’ similar to the aforementioned exhibitions, it attempts to transcends the politics of difference by addressing the ‘we’ as the ‘everyday’ citizen. It serves as a gallery space and similarly evokes western romantic universal ideals conveyed in the exhibition ‘The Family of Man’, whilst its aesthetic forms avoid the stylististically captured scenes of ‘After September 11’. As stated earlier, the site had over 11 million hits in the first few weeks; as such the sheer number of viewers exceeds that of any formal photographic exhibition. Moreover, unlike these highly constructed art exhibitions from leading professional photographers, the Website significantly presents a democratic form of participation in which the ‘personal is political’. It is the citizen journalist. It is the ‘everyday’ person, as evidenced in the predominant snapshot aesthetics and the ordinariness in the images that are employed. Kris Cohen, in his analysis of photoblogging suggests that this aesthetic emphasises the importance in “photoblogging of not thinking too much, of the role that instinct plays in the making of photographs and the photoblog” (890). As discussed, previously, the overwhelming response and contributions to the Website within days of its launch seems to suggest this. The submission of photographs suggests a visceral response to the incidents from the ‘people’ in the celebration of the ‘everyday’ and the mundane. It also should be noted that “there are now well over a million documented blogs and photoblogs in the world”, with most appearing since 2003 (Cohen 886). As Cohen suggests “their newfound popularity has provoked a gentle storm of press, along with a significant number of utopic scenarios in which blogs feature as the next emancipatory mass media product”(886). The world-wide press coverage for the “We’re Not Afraid’ site is one key example that promotes this “utopian vision of transfigured citizens and in Benedict Anderson’s well used term an ‘imagined community” (Goggin xx). Nevertheless, the defiant captioning of the images also returns us historically to the social memory of the London Blitz 1940-41 in which the theme of a transfigured community was employed and in which the London underground and shelters became a signifier for the momentum of “We’re Not Afraid’. Barthes explained in Mythologies about the “the sight of the ‘naturalness’ with which newspapers, art and common sense constantly dress up a reality which, even though it is the one we live in, is undoubtedly determined by history” (11). What I want to argue is that the mythology surrounding the London bombings articulated in the Website “We’re Not Afraid’ is determined by 20th Century history of the media and the cultural imaginary surrounding predominantly British values*.** *The British Prime Minister at the time, Tony Blair, asserted that “qualities of creativity built on tolerance, openness and adaptability, work and self improvement, strong communities and families and fair play, rights and responsibilities and an outward looking approach to the world that all flow from our unique island geography and history.” (“Blair Defines British Values”). These values are suggested in the types of photographs uploaded onto the activist Website, as such notions of the British Empire are evoked. Moreover, in his address following the incident, “Blair harkened back to the ‘Blitz spirit’ that saw Londoners through the dark days of Nazi bombing during World War II — and, by association, to Winston Churchill, the wartime leader whose determined, moving speeches helped steel the national resolve” (“Blair Delivers”). In his Churchillian cadence he paid “tribute to the stoicism and resilience of the people of London who have responded in a way typical of them”. He said Britain would show “by our spirit and dignity” that “our values will long outlast” the terrorists. He further declared that “the purpose of terrorism is just that. It is to terrorize people and we will not be terrorized” (“Blair Delivers”). The mythology of the Blitz and “the interpretive context at the time (and for some years thereafter) can be summarized by the phrase ‘the People’s War’—a populist patriotism that combined criticism of the past with expectations of social change and inclusive messages of shared heritage and values” (Field 31). The image conveyed is of a renewed sense of community. The language of triumph against adversity and the endurance of ordinary citizens are also evoked in the popular press of the London incidents. The Times announced: Revulsion and resolve: Despite the shock, horror and outrage, the calm shown in London was exemplary. Ordinary life may be inconvenienced by the spectre of terror, yet terrorism will not force free societies to abandon their fundamental features. An attack was inevitable. The casualties were dreadful. The terrorists have only strengthened the resolve of Britain and its people. (“What the Papers Say”) Similarly the Daily Express headline was “We Britons Will Never Be Defeated” (“What the Papers Say”). The declaration of “We’re not afraid” alongside images on the Website follows on from this trajectory. The BBC reported that the Website “‘We’re not afraid’ gives Londoners a voice” (“Not Afraid Website Overwhelmed”). The BBC has also made a documentary concerning the mission and the somewhat utopian principles presented. Similarly discussion of the site has been evoked in other Weblogs that overwhelmingly praise it and very rarely question its role. One example is from a discussion of “We’re Not Afraid” on another activist site titled “World Changing: Change Your Thinking”. The contributor states: Well, I live in the UK and I am afraid. I’m also scared that sites like We’re Not Afraid encourage an unhealthy solidarity of superiority, nationalism and xenophobia – perpetuating a “we’re good” and “they’re evil” mentality that avoids the big picture questions of how we got here. Posted by: John Norris at July 8, 2005 03:45 AM Notably, this statement also reiterates the previous argument on cultural diplomacy presented by theorists in regards to the exhibitions of ‘The Family of Man’ and ‘After September 11’ in which the images are viewed as propaganda, promoting western cultural values. This is also supported by the mood of commentary in the British press since the London bombings, in which it is argued that “Britain and the British way of life are under threat, the implication being that the threat is so serious that it may ultimately destroy the nation and its values” (King). The significance of the Website is that it represents a somewhat democratic medium in its call for engagement and self-expression. Furthermore, the emancipatory photography of self and space, presented in the “We’re Not Afraid” site, echoes Blair’s declaration of “we will not be terrorized”. However, it follows similar politically conservative themes that were evoked in the Blitz, such as community, family and social stability, with tacit reference to social fragmentation and multi-ethnicity (Field 41-42). In general, as befitted the theme of “a People’s War,” the Blitz imagery was positive and sympathetic in the way it promoted the endurance of the ordinary citizen. Geoffrey Field suggests “it offered an implicit rejoinder to the earlier furor—focusing especially on brave, caring mothers who made efforts to retain some semblance of family under the most difficult circumstances and fathers who turned up for work no matter how heavy the bombing had been the night before” (24). Images on the Website consist of snapshots of babies, families, pets, sporting groups, people on holiday and at celebrations. It represents a, somewhat, global perspective of middle-class values. The snapshot aesthetic presents, what Liz Kotz refers to as, the “aesthetics of intimacy”. It is a certain kind of photographic work which is quasi-documentary and consists of “colour images of individuals, families, or groupings, presented in an apparently intimate, unposed manner, shot in an off-kilter, snapshot style, often a bit grainy, unfocused, off-colour” (204). These are the types of images that provide the visual gratification of solidarity amongst its contributors and viewers, as it seemingly appears more ‘real’. Yet, Kotz asserts that these type of photographs also involve a structure of power relations “that cannot be easily evaded by the spontaneous performance before the lens” (210). For example, Sarah Boxer importantly points out that “We’re Not Afraid”, set up to show solidarity with London, seems to be turning into a place where the haves of the world can show that they’re not afraid of the have-nots” (1). She argues that “there’s a brutish flaunting of wealth and leisure” (1). The iconography in the images of “We’re not Afraid” certainly promotes a ‘memorialisation’ of the middle-class sphere. The site draws attention to the values of the global neoliberal order in which capital accumulation is paramount. It, nevertheless, also attempts to challenge “the true victory of terrorism”, which Jean Baudrillard circumspectly remarks is in “the regression of the value system, of all the ideology of freedom and free movement etc… that the Western world is so proud of, and that legitimates in its eyes its power over the rest of the world”. Self-confidence is conveyed in the images. Moreover, with the subjects welcoming gaze to the camera there may be a sense of narcissism in publicising what could be considered mundane. However, visibility is power. For example, one of the contributors, Maryland USA resident Darcy Nair, said “she felt a sense of helplessness in the days after 9/11. Posting on the We’re Not Afraid may be a small act, but it does give people like her a sense that they’re doing something” (cited in Weir). Nair states that: It seems that it is the only good answer from someone like me who’s not in the government or military…There are so many other people who are joining in. When bunches of individuals get together – it does make me feel hopeful – there are so many other people who feel the same way. (cited in Weir) Participation in the Website conveys a power which consists of defiantly celebrating western middle-class aesthetics in the form of personal photography. As such, the personal becomes political and the private becomes public. The site offers an opportunity for a shared experience and a sense of community that perhaps is needed in the era of global terrorism. It could be seen as a celebration of survival (Weir). The Website seems inspirational with its defiant message. Moreover, it also has postings from various parts of the world that convey a message of triumph in the ‘everyday’. The site also presents the ubiquitous use of photography in a western cultural tradition in which idealised constructions are manifested in ‘Kodak’ moments and in which the domestic space and leisure times are immortalised and become, significantly, the arena of activism. As previously discussed Sontag argues that photography is mainly a social rite, a defence against anxiety, and a tool of power (8). The Website offers the sense of a global connection. It promotes itself as “citizens for a secure world, united against terror”. It attempts to provide a universal solidarity, which appears uplifting. It is a defence against anxiety in which, in the act of using personal photographs, it becomes part of the collective memory and assists in easing the frustration of not being able to do anything. As Sontag argues “often something looks, or is felt to look ‘better’ in a photograph. Indeed, it is one of the functions of photography to improve the normal appearance of things” (81). Rather than focus on the tragic victim of traditional photojournalism, in which the camera is directed towards the other, the site promotes the sharing and triumph of personal moments. In the spotlight are ‘everyday’ modalities from ‘everyday people’ attempting to confront the rhetoric of terrorism. In their welcoming gaze to the camera the photographic subjects challenge the notion of the sensational image, the spectacle that is on show is that of middle-class modalities and a performance of collective power. Note Themes from this article have been presented at the 2005 Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference in Sydney, Australia and at the 2006 Association for Cultural Studies Crossroads Conference in Istanbul, Turkey. References Barthes, Roland. “The Photographic Message.” Image-Music-Text. Trans. Stephen Heath. New York: Noonday Press, 1977 [1961]. 15-31. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers. London: Vintage, 1993 [1972]. Baudrillard, Jean. “The Spirit of Terrorism.” Trans. Rachel Bloul. La Monde 2 (2001). http://www.egs.edu/faculty/baudrillard/baudrillard-the-spirit-of-terrorism.html>. “Blair Defines British Values.” BBC News 28 Mar. 2000. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/693591.stm>. “Blair Delivers a Classically British Rallying Cry.” Associated Press 7 July 2005. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8502984/>. Boxter, Sarah. “On the Web, Fearlessness Meets Frivolousness.” The York Times 12 July 2005. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/arts/design/12boxe.html?ex= 1278820800&en=e3b207245991aea8&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>. Clarke, R. “Web Site Shows Defiance to Bombers: Thousands Send Images to Say ‘We Are Not Afraid.’” CNN International 12 July 2005. http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/07/11/london.website/>. “CJ Bombings in London.” MSNBC TV Citizen Journalist. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8499792/>. Cohen, Kris R. “What Does the Photoblog Want?” Media, Culture & Society 27.6 (2005): 883-901. Dennen, Alfie. “We’renotafraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United Against Terror.” http://www.werenotafraid.com/>. Field, Geoffrey. “Nights Underground in Darkest London: The Blitz, 1940–1941.” International Labor and Working-Class History 62 (2002): 11-49. Frosh, Paul. “The Public Eye and the Citizen-Voyeur: Photography as a Performance of Power.” Social Semiotics 11.1 (2001): 43-59. Gye, Lisa. “Picture This: The Impact of Mobile Camera Phones on Personal Photographic Practices.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 22.2 (2007): 279-288. Jameson, Fredric. “Postmodernism and Consumer Society.” The Cultural Turn: Selected Writings on the Postmodern. New York: Verso, 1998. 1-20. Kennedy, Liam. “Remembering September 11: Photography as Cultural Diplomacy.” International Affairs 79.2 (2003): 315-326. King, Anthony. “What Does It Mean to Be British?” Telegraph 27 May 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/27/ nbrit27.xml>. Kotz, Liz. “The Aesthetics of Intimacy.” In D. Bright (ed.), The Passionate Camera: Photography and Bodies of Desire. London: Routledge, 1998. 204-215. “London Explosions: Your Photos.” BBC News 8 July 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/4660563.stm>. Nikkhah, Roya. “We’restillnotafraid.com.” Telegraph co.uk 23 July 2005. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/24/ nseven224.xml>. “‘Not Afraid’ Website Overwhelmed.” BBC News 12 July 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/london/4674425.stm>. Norris, John. “We’re Not Afraid”. World Changing: Change Your Thinking. http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003069.html>. “Reuters: You Witness News.” http://www.reuters.com/youwitness>. Sambrook, Richard. “Citizen Journalism and the BBC.” Nieman Reports (Winter 2005): 13-16. Sekula, Allan. “The Traffic in Photographs.” In Photography against the Grain: Essays and Photoworks 1973-1983. Halifax Nova Scotia: Nova Scotia College Press, 1984. Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2003. Sontag. Susan. On Photography. New York: Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 1977. Weir, William. “The Global Community Support and Sends a Defiant Message to Terrorists.” Hartford Courant 14 July 2005. http://www.uchc.edu/ocomm/newsarchive/news05/jul05/notafraid.html>. We’renot afraid.com: Citizens for a Secure World, United against Terror. http://www.werenotafraid.com>. “What the Papers Say.” Media Guardian 8 July 2005. http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2005/jul/08/pressandpublishing.terrorism1>. Zulaika, Joseba, and William A. Douglass. Terror and Taboo: The Follies, Fables, and Faces of Terrorism. New York: Routledge, 1996. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Allmark, Panizza. "Photography after the Incidents: We’re Not Afraid!." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/06-allmark.php>. APA Style Allmark, P. (Apr. 2008) "Photography after the Incidents: We’re Not Afraid!," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/06-allmark.php>.

In this study, we explored mechanisms related to glucose and fatty acid metabolism in Holstein–Friesian multiparous dairy cows during lactation under two feeding strategies. From 0 to 180 days postpartum, cows were fed total mixed ration (TMR) ad libitum (non-grazing group, G0) or grazed Festuca arundinacea or Medicago sativa and were supplemented with 5.4 kg DM/d of an energy-protein concentrate (grazing group, G1). From 180 to 250 days postpartum, all cows grazed F. arundinacea and were supplemented with TMR. Plasma samples and liver biopsies were collected at −14, 35, 60, 110, 180, and 250 days in milk (DIM) for metabolite, hormone, gene expression, and western blot analysis. Our results showed increased levels of negative energy balance markers: plasma non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), liver triglyceride and plasma β-hydroxybutyrate (BHB) (P &lt; 0.01), triglyceride and β-hydroxybutyrate concentration were especially elevated for G1 cows. Also, hepatic mRNA expression of gluconeogenic enzymes was upregulated during early lactation (P &lt; 0.05). In particular, methymalonyl-CoA mutase expression was increased for G0 cows (P &lt; 0.05) while pyruvate carboxylase (PC) expression was increased for G1 cows (P &lt; 0.05), suggesting differential gluconeogenic precursors for different feeding strategies. Phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase was increased in early lactation vs. late lactation (P &lt; 0.01) and negatively correlated with PC mRNA levels. The positive association of gluconeogenic genes with proliferator-activated receptor gamma coactivator 1-alpha (PPARGC1A) hepatic expression supported the importance of this transcription factor in glucose metabolism. The peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha (PPARA) mRNA was increased during early lactation (P &lt; 0.05), and was positively associated to PPARGC1A, carnitine palmitoyl-transferase 1, and hydroxymethylglutaryl-CoA synthase 2 (HMGCS2) mRNA expression. Alongside, hepatic mRNA expression of FABP was decreased for G1 vs. G0 cows (P &lt; 0.05), possibly linked to impaired fatty acid transport and related to accumulation of liver triglycerides, evidencing G1 cows fail to adapt to the demands of early lactation. In sum, our results showed that metabolic adaptations related to early lactation negative energy balance can be affected by feeding strategy and might be regulated by the metabolic sensors AMPK, SIRT1, and coordinated by transcription factors PPARGC1A and PPARA.

The Extended Specimen was first described by Webster (2017). He defined a “constellation of specimen preparations and data types,” centered around an occurrence of an organism, which captures the breadth of empirical facts about an organism’s phenotype, genotype, and ecology in space and time. The Extended Specimen Network was embraced by the collections community in the Biodiversity Collections Network Extended Specimen Report (Lendemer et al. 2020) and the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine Future of Collections report (Lendemer et al. 2020, National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine 2020). Several global discussions are underway to build a common definition of the Digital Extended Specimen (DES) and elucidate next steps in building the infrastructure to support Digital Extended Specimens and their network of associated data (including efforts among Distributed System of Scientific Collections (DiSSCo), Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN), GBIF’s Alliance for Biodiversity Knowledge, TDWG's Task Group on Minimum Information about a Digital Specimen (MIDS), and others.) At the foundation of the DES is the occurrence of an organism in time and space, which is represented by physical specimens or observations serving as tokens of reality. Tokens are translated to digital records, which can be extended through a network of linkages between them and with derived and associated data, e.g. project methodologies, environmental conditions, habitat characteristics, and associated taxa. For digital records to be integrated with the larger network of Digital Extended Specimens, they must become FAIR digital objects that are Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (Wilkinson et al. 2016). By translating the Digital Extended Specimen concept to the local project scale, we provide opportunities to move beyond a theoretical understanding of the DES and towards a practical framework for its implementation. Here we present and discuss the power, limits, and questions in the implementation of the Digital Extended Specimen framework by applying it to the case study of an invasive aquatic plant in the Laurentian Great Lakes region. European frog-bit (Hydrocharis morsus-ranae L.; EFB) is native to western and northern Eurasia and invasive in North America and India. Dense mats of EFB may hinder commercial and recreational use of waterways and decrease light, dissolved oxygen, and native species diversity. We describe a multi-taxonomic study that examined EFB along with associated plant species, animal species, and environmental characteristics (Monfils et al. 2021). The integration of such diverse types of empirical data is a necessary prerequisite for determining the factors associated with EFB establishment, the impacts of EFB on native coastal wetland ecosystems, and the development of suitable management regimes for the conservation of native biodiversity. Data gathered from this study are housed in a local database. In our database, we consider both physical specimens and recorded observations as tokens of concrete occurrences of EFB, which define the base units. These tokens are linked to their collection events, which provide environmental and sampling context, as well as co-occurrences of other taxa including plants, invertebrates, fish, anurans, reptiles, and birds. Digitally linked, these extensions of each digital representation of a collected token provide not only empirical evidence of an EFB occurrence, but also directly connect it with all additionally sampled, derived, and associated information. Through this network of extensions we gain a more holistic understanding of EFB’s species associations, habitats, and ecosystem impacts at the level of populations and communities. The application of the Digital Extended Specimen framework at the project level illustrates how the DES can be used in a real-world context and highlights challenges in translating the concept from a theoretical to a practical perspective.

Traditionally, the country way of life, the country worldview -- the country culture -- has been understood differently to the city way of life. Notions of rural have been represented in terms such as 'Eden', 'Arcadia', 'Golden Age', and associated with beauty, fertility, moral uprightness and authenticity. In contrast, notions of urban have been characterised by pollution, sterility, degeneration and artificiality. In Australia, the culture of the first white settlers developed out of this tradition, but with its own distinctive characteristics. The harshness and indomitability of the landscape became the means by which unique character, unifying myths of belonging and societal significance were constructed and asserted. In contrast to the communities of the country's original inhabitants, which were perceived as passive, unproductive and disconnected, the new culture was characterised by notions of 'land', 'masculinity', 'white', 'productive', 'homogenous' and 'nationalistic' (Moore 54; Turner 6; Ward; White 16ff.). Defining the country worldview in contemporary Australia, however, is problematic. Question marks hang over the continued significance, even existence, of a specifically country culture. Post-war Australia has witnessed enormous economic and social changes, wrought by improved transport and communication networks, a shrinking rural population, and the decreasing importance of the agricultural industries. The steady decline in grass roots support for the National Party of Australia, traditional defender of the country way of life, suggests that the voting population no longer views the upholding of specifically pro-country policies as necessary to the well-being of the nation. Australia is now recognised as the most urbanised, sub-urbanised and multi-cultural of the western industrialised nations. Globalisation of the mass communications media has blurred the boundaries between rural, urban, state and national. Consequently, many argue that the differences between the country and city are now insignificant (for example, Aitkin 34-41). Yet notions of country that are distinct, even definitive, continue to be represented in various urban-based communications industries, cultural policies, and the discourses of environmental politics and nationalism. Examples include John Laws's very popular Across Australia radio talk-back programme which celebrates the outback, the farmer and 'battler', and the 'True Blue' music of country artist John Williamson; the push by the Green movement to separate and protect wilderness areas of 'natural' bushland from the corrupting influences of human cultivation; and the continued significance of the 'bush' and 'bushman' in divers constructions of national cultural identity. Share and Lawrence argue that such representations are a state of mind rather than a state of being, "in the imagination of the cosmopolis" only (Share & Lawrence 101). Imagined or otherwise, however, the evidence suggests that they are representations which are nevertheless there -- albeit constructed in varying ways, with varying emphases, and in a variety of settings. Tamworth: Country at Heart Jacka argues that it is the 'local', constructed by a specific set of forces and circumstances and operating within a particular time frame and place, that provides the best or most 'authentic' means of analysing notions of the 'country' (qtd. in Share & Lawrence 102). Tamworth, situated in North Western New South Wales, approximately four hundred kilometres from Sydney, is one such 'authentic' locality. The city of Tamworth and its surrounding hinterland is populated by some 55,000 people. Timber and farmland constitute 95% of its land use. Agricultural production generates the bulk of its net income. The Tamworth electoral district has been designated 'country' by the State Electoral Office. Promotional billboards erected by the Tamworth City Council and situated on all major highways into the city describe Tamworth as 'the heart of country'. Tamworth is renowned as 'the Country Music Capital of Australasia' and celebrates 'country' values annually through a highly successful Country Music Festival. Clearly, notions of country are significant in the shaping of how Tamworth is perceived as a community locally and nationally. These notions are an important component of the process of meaning generation, circulation and exchange inTamworth -- indeed, they are an important component of the essential fabric that constitutes the Tamworth culture. Analysis The Tamworth worldview was studied through an analysis of the coverage of the local NSW state election campaigns of 1995 and 1999 by Tamworth's only regional daily newspaper, the Northern Daily Leader. Regional daily newspapers are a useful means of analysing the major preoccupations of a culture. They contribute significantly to the construction and representation of the communities they serve: they are moulded by the specific needs of their communities; they are prominent influences of the norms, values and processes of these communities; they are the product of a community that is connected by common and local interests and knowledge, written with and by the people of this community (Mules et al. 242). The coverage of the 1995 and 1999 election campaigns represented a discrete sample of texts with a common focus. An important aspect of this focus was Mr Tony Windsor, Independent State Member for Tamworth. Windsor's Independent status was significant to the study. Firstly, it suggests that he was elected to office on his own merits or on the merits of his policies, as against any particular party affiliation. Papadakis and Bean argue that a vote for an Independent most often represents a protest vote against the dominant players in the political system rather than any systemic approval of the policy positions or other qualities of the recipient (109). This may well have been the case for Windsor's initial victory in 1991. However, in the 1995 election he won an unprecedented 83% of the primary vote, representing voters from right across the political spectrum. He further increased his majority in the 1999 election. Windsor's extraordinary popularity suggests that his appeal cut across the political boundaries into the social and cultural realms. As such, Windsor embodies a singular means of analysing the socio-politico-cultural preoccupations of those he represents. The study tracked story frequency and space, and analysed pictorial, headline and lead texts in terms of story focus, personal and thematic associations, and candidate agency. It was found that the Leader markedly privileged Windsor over his opponents in regards to story frequency and space. The pictorial and key word analyses identified Windsor's public persona as more active and more person-oriented than those of his opponents, and as associated more often with exterior settings, particularly those in or connected with 'bush' locations. This stood in contrast to the representations of his major ALP opponents. In both elections they were female, associated more with interior settings, and represented as speaking more than doing, passive more than active, and concerned more with their emotions and states of being than was Windsor. Overall, the Leader's representation of Windsor was found to comprise the six notions noted above as being characteristic of the traditional country worldview. Windsor's connections with and concerns for the land and country issues were significant. The construction of male and female gender roles was masculinist in nature. The absence of any signifiers associated with notions of 'Aboriginality', 'ethnicity', even 'diversity', indicated the existence of naturalised discourses of 'white' and 'homogeneity'. Notions of productivity were evident through Windsor's preoccupation with the business and industry. Nationalism was implied through Windsor's association with characteristics that epitomise traditional understandings of what it is to be an Australian. Two additional characteristics were also identified. The first of these was named 'Independent', as indicated through the significance placed upon Windsor's politically Independent status. It was defined by the traditional understandings of the country worldview and ideas of integrity, 'a fair go' for the country, and of giving power back to the people. In contrast, the major political parties, ALP and National Party, were associated with the city, corruption, interference, lack of democracy, the undermining of country values by city values, and a subordination of the country to the city. The second characteristic was named 'community'. It was indicated through ideas of belonging and like-mindedness, andWindsor's representation as friendly, person-oriented and concerned with the active provision of services for the people. Implications The Tamworth culture is characterised by the notions of 'land', 'masculinity', 'white', 'productive', 'homogenous', 'nationalistic', 'Independent' and 'community'. This very characterisation, however, is one that gives rise to a number of questions. What drove the Leader to construct and represent the Tamworth culture in this way? How did and does this particular characterisation serve the needs of the Tamworth people? How and why are these needs different to the needs of city people -- or even people in other rural communities? Perhaps the best answer lies with the demonstrated longevity of the essential nature of the Tamworth worldview. Traditional notions of country have remained distinctive, even definitive, despite Australia's urbanisation, suburbanisation, multiculturalism; despite the enormous economic and social changes that have been wrought by globalisation; despite the consequent blurring of boundaries between rural, urban, state and national. This traditional nature, it seems, is resistant to change. Yet there is also evidence that a blurring of boundaries, even change, has occurred in Tamworth. Examples include the fact that the combined income generated by secondary and tertiary industries in the Tamworth district is now greater than that generated by agriculture; Windsor, with whom the Leader so closely associates the land and other notions traditionally associated with the country, also holds a university degree in economics; the annual Country Music Festival is celebrated largely from within the confines of the city of Tamworth itself; Tamworth City Council and Country Music Festival both have sites on the World Wide Web, thereby connecting them with the very globalisation that the Leader would have them resisting. Although this may suggest that the country has actually appropriated, even assimilated many of the notions that are most often associated with change in today's society, it also seems that this assimilation is one that is on the country's terms only. Notions of the city are subordinated to notions of the country. Change is appropriated, but in a way that maintains the status quo -- that perpetuates the essential country worldview, both locally and nationally. Such evidence of change may also suggest that the Leader's representation of Windsor, of Tamworth, is perhaps a state of mind rather than a state of being. It is a representation that taps into the imagination of the people rather than their everyday existence. In so doing, it worked to position over 85% of the population into voting a particular way in the 1995 and 1999 NSW State elections. It may also work to draw the many people from around Australia who bring their tourist dollars into Tamworth each year to celebrate country values through the Country Music Festival. The Tamworth culture may well uphold a construction of Australian identity that is outside the direct experience of those who live on the coastal fringes, yet it provides an attractive, even desirable holiday destination for many. Perhaps this is because people, country and city alike, continue to see the country as a place that offers them a simple solution to tensions and conflicts that are otherwise unresolvable. Change produces anxiety -- especially a postmodern change in which all semblances of certainty have been removed. On the other hand, the study suggests that the country worldview represents that which does not change. Its definitive nature stands in contrast and provides an alternative to the relativism of the city. Notions of country represent a surety in a world that is otherwise uncertain. References Aitkin, D. "Countrymindedness: The Spread of an Idea." Australian Cultural History 4 (1985): 34-41. Moore, A. "The Old Guard and 'Countrymindedness' during the Great Depression." Journal of Australian Studies 27 (1990): 54. Mules, W., T. Shirato, and B. Wigman. "Rural Identity within the Symbolic Order: Media Representations of the Drought." Communication and Culture in Rural Areas. Ed. P. Share. Wagga Wagga: Charles Sturt UP, 1995. 242. 6. Papadakis, E., and C. Bean. "Independents and the Minor Parties: The Electoral System." Australian Journal of Political Science 30 (1995): 109. Share, P., G. Lawrence. "Fear and Loathing in Wagga Wagga: Cultural Representations of the Rural and Possible Policy Implications." Communication and Culture in Rural Areas. Ed. P. Share. Wagga Wagga: Charles Sturt UP, 1995. Turner, G. Making It National. Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1994. Ward, R. The Australian Legend. Melbourne: Oxford UP, 1958. White, R. Inventing Australia. Sydney:Allen & Unwin, 1981. 16ff. Citation reference for this article MLA style: Catherine Richardson. "The Politics of a Country Culture: State of Mind or State of Being?" M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3.2 (2000). [your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/country.php>. Chicago style: Catherine Richardson, "The Politics of a Country Culture: State of Mind or State of Being?," M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3, no. 2 (2000), <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/country.php> ([your date of access]). APA style: Catherine Richardson. (2000) The politics of a country culture: state of mind or state of being?. M/C: A Journal of Media and Culture 3(2). <http://www.api-network.com/mc/0005/country.php> ([your date of access]).

It is often heard, and even more often seen written, for example on social media, that that there is nothing new in the competitive intelligence (CI) field. There are no new ideas, the ideas that are being expressed are the same old, there is no development, there is, at best, stagnation. Even the old claim that CI is dead[1] reappears with a certain frequency[2]: “Competitive intelligence as a profession is dead. There are fewer and fewer full-time, dedicated CI professionals in organizations, and even fewer legitimate CI departments or functions. The need to understand an organization’s competitors has been diffused to several other functions including market research, finance, sales, R&D and others. What the founders of the profession - Jan Herring, Leonard Fuld, and Ben Gilad - built through the 80s and 90s no longer exists. And organizations are the worse off for it”[3]. Is this true? Yes and No. From a research perspective CI has developed and emerged with information technology (IT) solutions over the past ten years. It has come to the point where it does not make much sense to talk about new CI practices. Most advancements and developments are now about IT solutions and applications. This has again given rise to a whole new world of intelligence related problems and opportunities, not only for engineers but for users of these technologies. It is probably fair to say that the intelligence perspective has never been as important for businesses as it is today. Companies and organizations have never collected and analyzed as much information. Another way to explain this development is to say that CI has evolved, thus is no longer the same. Trying to look for the same or insisting that it has not changed gives the impression that there is nothing new in CI. CI consists of an interesting body of literature, but it was not the first term to deal with questions of intelligence in private organizations, and it is not the last. Before CI there was social intelligence, strategic intelligence and corporate intelligence with their own consultants and literature. As Sawka rightly points out CI was a label used in the 80s and 90s. Other terms used include market intelligence, marketing intelligence, business intelligence, collective intelligence, financial intelligence, scientific and technical intelligence, foresight, insight, and equivalent terms in other languages, like “l’information stratégique et de la sécurité économiques” (Sisse) [previously “intelligence économique"], “veille” in French and “omvärldsanalys” in Swedish. All these fields, where a field is defined as a body of literature, basically study the same phenomenon, how to gather information to make better decisions. As such intelligence studies is a part of the information age. The information age gave birth to several bodies of literature, of which the more established include information systems, management information systems and customer relations management. The intelligence perspective never really caught on among business scholars, maybe because it was associated with industrial espionage. The intelligence parallel in business is also a bet, the argument that private organizations are better organized as intelligence organizations, much like in state and/or military organizations. The idea is that this will give better information, which again will lead to a competitive advantage. So far, this bet has not caught on. Business organizations continue to be organized much as they were a hundred years ago: into production, sales, marketing, HR, finance and accounting. However, the way people work in all of these departments with ever larger amounts of information and data is starting to look more like intelligence operatives with their extensive system of files. In other words, the CI position never really saw a breakthrough, but CI has become an ever more important part of employees’ jobs, as a function.How can we then explain the frequently raised discussion related to the problems of CI? Let me suggest two answers, one general, the other more specific. Once we create something, we insist that it has either to exist, as it is, or it must disappear, thus at the end it is declared dead. This is the western mind at work, thinking in dichotomies, a thing either exist or it does not exist. There is no room for evolution, only constants. If a phenomenon such as a discipline evolves, we shouldn’t say that it’s dead, it just isn’t the same anymore, and nothing is more natural than that. So, what must change is rather the way in which we think about the fields we study. The other suggestion is that the critic of CI has more to do with another problem, the selling of consulting services. The market for consultancy services is highly segmented and fiercely competitive. As consultants we are trying to make a name for ourselves in a niche we can call our own and strive to be an acknowledged expert in it. This takes years, often a whole career. Academic careers are created much according to the same logic so the problem is the same there. The underlying message is “this is my area”, my niche, and as such I will defend it. What often happens is that another persons’ or group’s area grows into our own and sometimes is better at explaining the reality of our business problem, thus challenging our very raison d'être. Instead we insist that we are still relevant refusing to read up on other areas. We cease to be curious and the very business problems we study pass on to others. Some would argue this is what happened to CI.So, where is CI today? There certainly are many answers to this question. One suggestion is that it is more often treated as business intelligence again (it very much started there, but then without the IT association), data mining, search engine optimization, social media marketing and digital marketing in general. It suffices to look at the articles in this issue to find other examples: Bleoju et al. write about how MOOCs can be used to teach intelligence. Sperkova writes about customer experience (CX) and voice of customer (VoC). Poblano-Ojinaga et al. write about structural equation modeling for the identification of the intelligence factors. All authors have that in common that the are studying how organizations handle intelligence.In more detail, the first article by Bleoju et al. entitled “Empirical evidence from a connectivist competitive intelligence massive open online course (CI cMOOC) proof of concept” reveals how “the CI learning community perceives the capability of a cMOOC to train foreknowledge practices, given the best match between its content and context.” The paper argues for “an open intelligence approach to cMOOC collective training.”The second article by Maune entitled “Competitive intelligence as a game changer for Africa’s competitiveness in the global economy” develops a conceptual framework for how competitive intelligence can be adopted by African countries to improve their performance in the global economy.The third article by Sperkova entitled “Integration of textual VoC into a CX data model for business intelligence use in B2C” is a summary of her PhD, which will be defended in February 2020 at the University of Economics in Prague, the Department of Information Technologies. The author presents a model to store the customer experience (CX) and voice of customer (VoC) data as part of a business intelligence system. The model can help to improve customer relationships and make future performance more automatic and effective.The fourth article by Palilingan and Batmetan Entitled “How competitive intelligence can be used to improve a management vocational high school: A case from Indonesia” shows how competitive intelligence can be applied to make a vocational high school more efficient.The fifth and last article by Poblano-Ojinaga et al. entitled “Effect of the competitive intelligence on the innovation capability: an exploratory study in Mexican companies”, is an investigation using a methodology of structural equation modeling for the identification of the intelligence factors, to evaluate their relative importance and relationships with the innovation capability of Mexican companies. The empirical results show that the relationship between competitive intelligence and the innovation capability is indirect, with knowledge management as a mediating factor.Some news worth mentioning: we would like to thank the Swedish Research Council/ NOP-HS for receiving the “large” grant for Open Access journals for two years starting in 2020. JISIB is now indexed by Crossref, which should give users direct access to PDF full text through databases like Scopus and Web of Science. The SCIP organization, owned by Frost & Sullivan, has been reignited with a new executive director. We wish them good luck. There are numerous conferences on intelligence related topics this spring and next winter. See the JISIB website for details. Some of the editors of JISIB will be at the ICI in Bad Nauheim 11-14 May 2020. We hope to see you there.As always, we would above all like to thank the authors for their contributions to this issue of JISIB. Thanks to Dr. Allison Perrigo for reviewing English grammar and helping with layout design for all articles.[1] Sawka, Kenneth. (2010). The death of the competitive intelligence professional. Outward Insights, 13(2), 36-39.[2] Sawka, Kenneth. The death of the competitive intelligence professional. Retrieved January 30, 2020 from https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6627549366062194688[3] Idem